


On the Horizon

by ElDiablito_SF



Category: Black Sails
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Violence, Eventual Happy Ending, F/F, I can't believe I had to make up two of these relationship tags, Jealousy, M/M, Miscarriage, Season 4 who? I don't know her, Sexual Content, Would I Lie to You?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-06
Updated: 2018-02-24
Packaged: 2019-03-14 14:17:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 22,223
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13591854
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ElDiablito_SF/pseuds/ElDiablito_SF
Summary: How would season 4 have gone had Utley come to the exchange with Eleanor (because he'd been sleeping with Flint)??? I have it on very good authority it would go a little something like this.





	1. The Departure

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by all of you who have begged for more Futley as a result of [A Moth to the Flame](http://archiveofourown.org/works/13302462). (Thanks fam, this is for you!)
> 
> Since this is a canon divergence of s4, please assume that unless specified otherwise here, everything else that happens in canon would also happen in this verse. All canonical relationships remain unchanged and I'm not tagging for them. I will update the character tags as Plot Develops; right now, all characters are listed in order of appearance.

Preposterous that roosters were still allowed to exist within the fortress; surely they should have all been eaten by now. The ear-splitting crowing of cock-a-doodle-fucking-do made Utley scrunch his eyelids even more impossibly shut and burrow deeper into the warm flesh pressed against his face. Hazily, the realization that he was nosing into Captain Flint’s naked thigh began to dawn on him. He must have fallen asleep there, in the spread cradle of Flint’s legs, sated from the taste of the pirate’s cock, lulled to sleep by the rhythmic scrape of blunt fingernails against the unshaven back of his own skull.

Utley allowed his mouth to fall open, lips pressing into the pale, freckle-spattered flesh that bore traces of his fingers, bruises pressed into the warm skin in moments of oblivion, when his nostrils had flared and his throat spasmed around the captain’s pulsing cock. Had that been the night before? It may have been the night before that one… Whatever it was that Long John Silver had been plotting, he could take his fucking time as far as Utley was concerned.

“Mmm, g’morning,” the soft, sleepy rumble of Flint’s voice washed over him.

“I should go,” Utley whispered into the loose skin of Flint’s dangling sack, having absolutely no intention of going, and nuzzling up to his companion’s cock instead. It was addicting. It had bewitched him entirely as if it had been some sort of a magical wand and not a mortal man’s prick.

He shouldn’t have allowed himself to fall asleep in Flint’s cell in the first place. It would be a difficult sight to explain to the Governor’s lady-wife; he was having a difficult enough time explaining it to himself to any level of satisfaction.

“You can’t wake him up and leave him in such a state,” Flint’s voice and then Flint’s hand caressed the shell of Utley’s ear, toying with the tender skin of his lobe.

“Are you speaking of yourself in third person, or are you actually talking about your cock?”

“Which version is more charming?”

The grin was entirely audible in Flint’s timbre. Utley had to sink his teeth into the pale flesh of one of those thighs, leaving their imprint next to the purpling imprint of his thumb. If Flint’s thighs were a canvas, he would paint glorious landscapes all over them in blues, pinks, and purples.

He moaned, admittedly pathetically, as he extricated himself from between the pirate captain’s splayed limbs. “I must go,” he repeated, grabbing his discarded uniform from the foot of the prison cot. He dressed himself without looking back, buckling his belt and straightening out all his buttons. “You’re still not worried?” he tossed casually over his shoulder.

Flint’s gaze lay like a heavy blanket against his back. “I’m not,” he said and Utley let out a small breath he’d been holding.

“Perhaps tonight then…” He still could not look Flint in the eyes when he said this. It felt too close to begging. It was terrifying how much he needed, how much he _craved_ the goddamn pirate. His senses would be full of him the rest of the day, even if he did not turn around and steal another kiss before departing.

Which he did.

***

Flint’s expression had ever been inscrutable and he did not reassure Eleanor very much with his stoicism at that moment. Utley, still as a statue and mute as the grave, observed her exchange with the captain without moving an eyebrow.

“Lieutenant Utley,” Eleanor said, hand still clutched around Silver’s mysterious missive, “Select six of your best men to accompany us.”

“Ma’am, with your permission…”

She had been accustomed to having Utley obey without question, to the point where he had become the most trusted of her husband’s lackeys.

“What is it, Lieutenant?”

“I would like to be one of the six men accompanying you.” He avoided her eyes as he finished the sentence. Then, as if remembering himself, he pulled his hands tighter behind his back, forcing his stance to attention.

“That will not be necessary, Lieutenant,” Eleanor attempted to reassure him, casting another look over at Flint, who stood just as mutely, facing out towards the ocean that was almost as inscrutable as himself.

“My duty is to you, Ma’am. I would personally guarantee your safety.”

“As you wish,” she said, dismissing him to go about the business of their preparations.

She glanced back at Flint. She supposed there was no harm in letting him enjoy the sunshine a while longer before plunging back down into the tunnels. It was regretful to have Flint back at her side but in shackles. Still, she could not allow sentiment to get the better of her. It was bad enough to see it getting the better of Utley.

“What have you done to my best Lieutenant?” she whispered to Flint as she stood by his side, looking out to sea.

“I don’t know what you mean,” he replied with a shrug.

“Mm-hm,” Eleanor rocked back and forth on her heels, conscious of not placing her hand in that telltale sign over her belly. Somewhere out there, beyond the horizon, Woodes waited for her. Soon they would be together, and this entire nightmare would seem as if it had happened to someone else.

She turned and headed below to share the news of her imminent departure with Max.

***

In retrospect, Utley thought as he shot down another Spaniard, things could not possibly have gone more spectacularly tits up. He had anticipated pirates, spurious dealings, dastardly double-crosses from _that_ direction. He had not anticipated their own fucking Governor bringing the entire Spanish armada down upon their bloody heads. And yet, as he obeyed Flint’s commands like the rest of his comrades-in-arms, namely without second thought, it certainly appeared that here they were.

He’d reloaded just in time to shoot down another man, but not before his cowardly companions ran off.

“We have to go after those men before they bring back reinforcements,” Flint barked out. “You,” he pointed at Utley, “stay here and guard the house.”

“I’m coming with you,” Utley insisted with growing urgence.

“I _need_ you to stay here and protect them,” Flint’s voice was a heated whisper. Too close. Too unmovable. “Please,” he added softly.

“Go,” Utley replied, stepping back into the courtyard. His eyes traveled across the expanse of the dark window and met with the eyes of the the new Mrs. Rogers. “Tits up,” he muttered to himself as he settled on the porch, methodically reloading his musket.

If this plan of the Governess’ had worked, they’d all have been headed back to England by break of next day. In disgrace, having surrendered the island to a pirate and maroon insurrection in exchange for - what? A cache of gems that didn’t even belong to them, that Rogers would turn over to the fucking Spanish to save his own hide? Didn’t seem like a fate worth coveting. And that was before he had ever fallen into bed with Flint.

Back to England, where his fiancée awaited his return with bated breath, no doubt. Perhaps the disgrace with which he’d have managed to cover himself would have been sufficient deterrent for the union. She might have had enough decency to call the whole thing off. It would have saved him the trouble of re-enlisting, like he did the first time to escape his impending nuptials. Elizabeth had deserved better than him anyways. She, at the very least, deserved a husband who would not draw in terror from her petticoats.

A rustle of leaves perked up Utley’s ears. Perhaps Flint and the others were coming back. He rose from the porch and took a few steps towards the little gate. The impact on the back of his head was sudden and, as he tumbled forward onto the dirt, he had a moment of lucidity to thank his god for having given him a thick skull. It might’ve been so much worse; his assailant might’ve slit his throat, for example. From such a wound there really wasn’t much chance of recovery.

Utley suppressed a groan. He’d gone down like a rock, there was no sense in letting the enemy know he had not felled him and give him the excuse to come finish him off.

Sounds of a struggle echoed from within the house behind him. _I need you_ , Flint had said. _I need you to stay here and protect them_. Well, some protector he’d turned out to be, with his nose in the dirt. Cursing his unwieldy body to hell and back, Utley forced himself onto all fours. His head throbbed and his vision refused to focus. His hand came away from his scalp covered in blood. Must’ve hit a vessel. He’d seen the tiniest head wounds turn into the most embarrassing of bleeders. Blood dripped down his front, soaking his scarf, blending in with the crimson of his uniform, baptizing the ground like bursts of crushed cranberry.

He’d stumbled forward, crashing through the door just in time to rip the unknown assailant off the struggling form of the Lady Governor. She hadn’t even cried out, Utley remarked. Unbreakable, is what that woman was. Unlike himself, who was about to lose consciousness between the blood loss and the Spaniard’s filthy paws that were now wrapping tighter and tighter around his throat. He wanted to signal her to run. He wanted Flint to come back and kill this _hijo de puta_ so that they could all live to fuck another day.

Suddenly, the hold on his throat loosened, and the Spaniard staggered backwards, the point of a sabre sticking well through his chest. Behind him, panting and disheveled, stood the victorious form of the Governess.

“That’s a hell of a blow, Ma’am,” Utley muttered right before collapsing onto the floorboards next to the equally prone body of the would-be rapist. “My compliments,” he mouthed.

“Utley... Utley!” Her voice sounded very far away as he permitted his eyes to fall closed.

***

Eleanor’s hands were shaking as she pulled at the blood-spattered scarf tied around Utley’s neck. Her entire body buzzed with a mounting fever. A deafening pounding in her ears made it seem as if the entire house was a beating heart, palpitating around her. She was about to be swept away in a torrent of blood out to sea.

“Lieutenant,” she tried again, lifting the man’s head and wrapping the scarf as tightly as she could around the seeping wound. It had not looked deep. Utley’s neck had rapidly purpling marks in the shape of the Spaniard’s fingers now that it was exposed. It struck Eleanor that she had never noticed before how long and stately it had been.

She should never had stationed Utley as Flint’s guard. Not that it had mattered in the smallest in the long run. How could she have predicted fucking Spain?

Having tied the bandage off, Eleanor sank to the floor, her hand pressed feverishly into the swell of her abdomen. Something was not right inside her.

A soft groan from the back of the parlor roused Eleanor from her stupor. “Madi!” She scrambled up onto her knees, not having the strength to rise herself, and crawled across the floor. “Madi! Madi, wake up… Please…” Her hand stretched out towards Madi’s, fingers clasped together in a desperate effort. “Please,” Eleanor repeated. “Please, I can’t lose you again now that I’ve found you… Madi…” The fingers in Eleanor’s hand twitched and squeezed back. “Open your eyes, Madi,” she begged, pulling closer at last. Her ribs ached as if crushed out of alignment by the force of her corset. She wanted nothing more than to be cut right out of it.

Madi’s face, now that Eleanor could observe it at close quarters and pretend that she merely lay in repose, was cradled between her bloodstained hands. They appeared as two alabaster months against the ebony luster of Madi’s perfect skin. Her fingers traced the regal profile and the swoop of her eyebrows, like waves in a turbulent sea. Eleanor smiled down at the girl in her embrace.

“Madi, don’t you dare leave me,” she whispered, shaking her long lost friend, the sister of her childhood gently by the shoulders.

Behind her, the sound of boots against the wooden steps of the porch. “Eleanor,” Flint’s voice calling her home from her uncharted voyage. “What happened here?” Flint sinking down by her side, pulling Madi from her lap, his ear pressed into her chest. “She’s still alive.” A breath of relief, his face melting into something softer, kinder than a second ago. “Eleanor, are you all right? Can you stand?”

Her hand clutched at her green dress, where it lay pooled around her ankles. “My husband,” she whispered, afraid to meet his eyes, “is he with them?”

Flint was silent. It was one of his kinder silences that she’d learned to recognize over the years. He was trying to spare her, as he knelt there, biting his lip, toying with the rings on his fingers.

“I need to hear you say it,” Eleanor urged, her hand clasping over Flint’s.

“I believe so… yes,” Flint uttered, meeting her eyes. They sat on the floor, their heads executing simultaneous nods as a void opened up inside Eleanor. Something was bleeding out into the void. It was her future. It had slipped through her fingers like grains of sand. Max had been right about that, all their lives here were built on sand, and sand could not love her back.

“He had brought Spain..,” she whispered, eyes turned upwards to the ceiling, as much to catch the gathering tears as to look away from the piercing viridian of Flint’s all-knowing gaze. “That man tried to…” she motioned with her head towards the corpse of the Spaniard she had run through. “Utley saved me.”

“We have to go,” Flint said, attempting to pull her up from the floor. “We’ll need to carry Madi. Come, Eleanor, we cannot tarry here.”

“Utley is still alive,” she remembered. “I had…,” she’d tried to speak, one hand pressed to her throbbing temple, “I had… bandaged his wound… his pulse was strong…”

“Fetch me some cold water,” Flint barked towards the remaining redcoats.

Madi had been first to come to, they’d had a much more difficult time with the Lieutenant, probably due to the bloodloss. They were on foot, and none of the Spanish had been thoughtful enough to bring even a single horse to their own slaughter. Utley’s men had managed to get him upright, while Flint was insisting on carrying Madi himself.

“I can walk, Captain,” she protested. “Eleanor, tell him I can walk!”

“I would do as she says, Flint,” Eleanor said with a smile, before she too nearly collapsed. “I can’t… breathe…” she let out, her face pressed against the stitching of Madi’s caftan. They held each other up, two trees swaying in the wind.

A few minutes later, her corset, cut strings and all, lay in the dusty road. Her hand was clasped in Madi’s as she looked back at the white splotch against the brown of the soil. _Farewell_ , she thought. _Goodbye, goodbye._

***

The outline of Flint’s back was a phantom leading him down an unfamiliar road. Now and then, the rays of the afternoon sun would catch the millions of particles of kicked up dust, and make them shimmer like a golden halo around his frame. Utley figured there was a good chance he’d been hallucinating, as his boots measured the distance in front of him one uncertain step at a time.

Despite the sun that beat down upon them as mercilessly as ever and the fact that he had had no food or water pass his lips in hours, each step towards their unknown destination felt easier than the prior. Utley wondered if it was actually a sign that he was dying, the way an injured man at times feels the release of pain right before taking his final breath. Occasionally, Flint would cast a quick glance behind, to make sure they were still following, each such instance sending a surge of energy through Utley’s heavy limbs, like a drop of alchemical panacea. Flint walked on, his sabre bared in one hand, the other hand wrapped delicately around the liberated waist of the Governess, or Eleanor Guthrie, for Utley had a distinct feeling when they’d left the place of their temporary refuge that the woman who walked away was not the woman who had come in.

Had he still been the same man as the man who had walked the tunnels with her and looked over her shoulder at Captain Flint as he surrendered? Out there, somewhere, at their rendezvous point, was the long shadow of Long John Silver. Oh, what a shadow he’d cast, right into his heart, in a way that Utley could not reason away. The way he’d looked at Flint in those tunnels, the emphatic _NO_ that reverberated against the dark walls and made the torch flames flicker around them.

Licking his parched lips, Utley finally uttered a, “Where are we going?” to no one in particular.

“The Underhill plantation,” one of the men supporting him had replied.

They couldn’t be far, they’d been walking for what felt like hours, and the goddamn island wasn’t all that big.

Another quick backwards glance from Flint and, “We’re almost there,” sounded like sweet relief. Utley closed his eyes against the blazing sunshine and counted his steps.

***

Flint did not need to smell the gunsmoke in the air to surmise what had probably occurred at the Underhill Estate. The entire interior had been overrun by Spanish regulars, there was no way the plantation would not have been attacked.

“Tell me again what your plan had been,” Flint had asked Madi, in part to distract her from the same dark thoughts they must have been sharing.

“We were going to turn over Billy Bones to re-establish our alliance with the slave communities of this island,” Madi spoke, her eyes nervously scanning their surroundings as they approached. At least they weren’t hearing gunfire anymore. Whatever was the outcome of the attack, it would be over by now. “If the alliance held, then there is a chance…” Her voice had trailed off.

They might have been walking into a trap, Flint had to allow. But if Rogers had led the Spanish there, perhaps there was a chance they’d been told not to harm Eleanor. Perhaps the man who had attacked her at the house didn't know who she was. It wasn’t much, but it was better than nothing.

The gates of the plantation gaped open, Dooley’s disheveled form towered above others enough for Flint to spot him. That in itself was a good sign.

“I don’t see the Spanish,” Eleanor said in a low voice. She had paled along the way and her hair clung to her face and neck in perspiration-soaked clumps. She had not complained of not being able to breathe since leaving her corset in the island’s dust, but that did not mean that she had not been suffering of other wounds that were harder to detect.

 _Where is he?_ Flint almost bit through his lip scanning the estate for a mop of long, unruly curls. Losing Silver once had been just this side of unbearable. He did not think he could go through it twice.

Madi had spotted him first, tearing away from Flint’s side and throwing herself into her beloved’s embrace. How many times would Flint have to watch them kiss like that before their task was finished?

“Flint.” Eleanor’s fingers dug into his elbow. “Flint!”

“Mm?” he turned towards her, noting the dark circles that spread like ink around her eyes.

“What is your plan?”

The thump-and-shovel of Silver’s gait alerted Flint to his presence. Their eyes were all upon him now, expectant.

“They’ll be back and with heavy reinforcements,” Flint said. “How many men do you still have?”

“About thirty, plus Julius’ men,” Dooley was the one to reply. Silver’s eyes traveled in uncertain waves between Eleanor and the redcoats who had stood a few paces off. “We can fight them off, Captain! We did it once.”

“You lost half your men holding them off,” Flint retorted. “What will you do when they come back with triple the amount of forces? We were lucky to escape with all our lives intact,” he added, glancing to Madi for support by sheer instinct.

“He’s right,” Silver echoed, “we have to retreat.” His eyes finally settled back upon Eleanor. “What’s she doing here?”

“The cache wasn’t there,” Flint attempted to explain.

“All right, but why’d you bring her here?”

Flint separated from the group, pulling Silver by the elbow to the side so they could speak apart.

“Not all right. Why wasn’t the cache there?” He had not the time to explain the far more complex issue of why he’d brought Eleanor Guthrie to their rendezvous point. “Were you planning on betraying me all along?”

“I sent Kofi to the island for the bloody cache!” Silver exploded. “How dare you even ask me that? Do you know what I just did for you? To Billy?” He took a step back, his eyes scanning Flint’s face as if seeking to unearth something. “You don’t look much worse for wear, though. Prison life been treating you well then?”

“Ahem,” Eleanor had cleared her throat behind Flint.

“What?” they’d both snapped, turning around simultaneously.

“Spain?” she’d simply said, her hands propped against her hips in a stance that very much reminded Flint of the Eleanor Guthrie of old, before she let her hair down and put on fine embroidery and a corset instead of a cravat and a ring full of keys.

“Gather whatever supplies you can,” Flint ordered Dooley. “If there are any men who cannot stand, I want them carried. We will not leave anyone behind.”

“I’m coming with you,” Eleanor said.

“Absolutely _not_ ,” Silver sneered, grinding his crutch into the dirt.

“John,” Madi’s hand was on his arm, fingers trailing gently, as if soothing a savage beast. Flint smiled sadly at the thought of how simple it would be had he been allowed the luxury of doing the same.

“She’s with Rogers!” Silver exploded. “Do I even need to explain this to the both of you?” He looked from Madi to Flint as if he’d been convinced both of them had entirely lost what little reason they’d started out with. Perhaps he wasn’t entirely wrong, Flint had to allow for that.

“My husband brought Spain here,” Eleanor stated with quiet poise. “So I no longer have a husband.”

“Would that this were actually true,” Silver sniped.

“Take me with you, Captain,” she turned her eyes upon Flint. “I can be useful to you. I can’t go back. Not after… not after…” She’d stopped speaking, her hand pressing into her abdomen as if to fight off a bout of sudden nausea.

Madi’s next words had sealed the decision for all of them, “You said we will not leave anyone behind.”

“Fine,” Silver’s shoulders sank. “But if she does anything, that’s on the two of you,” he admonished, nodding between Flint and Madi.

“Mr. Silver, how our stations have turned,” Eleanor said with a pale smile, before catching Madi’s arm and leaning heavily against her. “Thank you, Madi.”

“Let’s head out,” Flint said and turned towards the gate when he’d spotted Utley, head bandaged, face as pale as Eleanor’s, and standing at attention right in front of him. “Lieutenant,” he nodded slowly, knocked off balance by a wave of sudden uncertainty.

“I would accompany Mistress Rogers,” Utley said.

“You won’t if you insist on calling her that,” Flint replied, suppressing a smile that suddenly threatened to engulf his features.

“My place is at her side,” Utley insisted rather stoically. Flint had to admire that.

“Don’t be daft, Utley,” he whispered, stepping closer. “You know what it means if you come away from this place with us. You’ll become a pirate, a fugitive, an enemy of the crown.”

“I do not see a way I could possibly stay,” Utley replied in a similar whisper. “Not after what Rogers has brought here. _He_ is the true enemy of the crown.”

“Society won’t see it that way,” Flint shook his head.

“ _Fuck_ society,” Utley replied in an urgent whisper.

“Flint, are you coming?” Silver’s voice called back to him and Flint took in the scene. He and Utley were standing very close now. Off to the right, the silhouette of a windmill taunted him like the very pages of _Don Quixote_ that Madi had quoted not so long ago. _Too much sanity can be madness._

“Are you really doing this for her or are you doing this for…?” Flint found himself unable to finish the question.

“I… I don’t know,” Utley shook his head and fixed his eyes upon his dusty boots.

“You’ve had quite a blow to the head,” Flint said softly.

“That’s not the most memorable blow I’ve had lately.”

Flint snorted despite his best efforts. “All right,” he said, patting Utley’s shoulder with a smile. “But you’ll have to lose the coat.”

“My fucking pleasure,” Utley replied, shaking out of his bloodstained uniform with an admirable amount of zeal. “It’s too bloody hot to be wearing a coat anyways.”

“You’re a madman,” Flint replied, eyes falling to Utley’s lips for a moment, just long enough to see the flash of tongue passing over the parched, delicate skin.

“Flint!” Silver’s voice held enough of an edge that Flint wondered if he might not also end up being concussed by the end of the day.

“Come on, Utley.”

They caught up with the cavalcade, which moved with the somber heaviness of a funeral procession away from the Underhill Estate. How did it all fail so spectacularly, Flint had to wonder, casting a last look in the direction of the invisible spectre of Nassau. They _had_ it, they actually held it, if only for a moment. Everything slipped away in an instant, like it always did. His whole life, everyone he's ever loved, all his best laid plans, always gone in a bloody instant.

“What the fuck is this?” Silver, who had separated from the rest of the group, was standing in front of him, eyes pointedly fixed on Utley’s bandaged head.

“He’s with me,” was all Flint had the wherewithal to say. For the time being.


	2. The Journey

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A quick shout out to my beloved Zoi who was forced to suffer as I suffer trying to untangle this web I've woven for us all. <3

“Stop fidgeting,” Flint complained, dabbing at Utley’s wound with something that burned. Utley stilled and resumed the hypnotic activity of trying to count the freckles on Flint’s nose, while the pirate captain attempted to tend to his wound. “We’ll ask one of Madi’s people to take a look once we’re back on the island,” Flint chatted idly. “We had an excellent medic on my crew.” He paused and looked up at Utley before resuming his narrative. “Your men… Berringer hanged him in the square the day we recaptured Nassau.”

“I’m sorry,” Utley replied quietly. He had lost count again.

“His name was Howell,” Flint continued, picking up a clean strip of linen to begin the rebandaging. “He’d been on my crew for five years. He was a good man.”

“I’m…”

“It wasn’t your fault,” Flint interrupted.

Utley took a deep breath and allowed Flint to apply the bandages in silence. They’d been on the longboat when Eleanor’s dress had begun to turn crimson. She had been unconscious when they had hauled her on board, her face covered by a veil hastily thrown over her by the woman in charge of the maroons. They’d quickly taken her below before anyone aboard had the chance to ask too many questions.

“It’s a slippery slope, you know,” Flint said. “Sodomy was my gateway into piracy as well.” The shadow of a smile lurked in the corners of Flint’s mouth. He had kissed that mouth, Utley remembered. He would kiss it again now, if he were allowed that privilege.

“I wasn’t ready to say goodbye yet,” Utley admitted, allowing himself the risk.

Letting the smile spread, Flint uttered, “You’re full of surprises.” His hands had been gentle against Utley’s throbbing temples. Flint too had been full of surprises, but Utley did not need to tell the captain that.

“You must think me quite weak,” he let out with a soft sigh as Flint’s hands fell away.

“On the contrary.” Flint’s hand drew carefully down the length of Utley’s arm. “I think you quite the opposite of weak.” Their hands touched and, in a courageous moment, Utley allowed himself to lean forward, so he could feel those lips against his own again.

Two loud knocks shook the cabin door before it opened without any further ado, making the two men pull apart as the figure of Long John Silver loomed in the aperture.

“If you’re done playing nursemaid here, I’d like a word,” the intruder stated gruffly.

Flint shot Utley a look that he very much wanted to read as regret as well as a silent promise. Flint’s fingers squeezed briefly around his wrist before he rose to follow his partner out. “Rest if you can,” the captain called back before closing the door. If he could, Utley supposed, he would. But he wasn’t sure yet how men could rest, lost like this in a sea of uncertainty. This must have been what they called freedom, after all.

***

“Where’s Madi?” Flint asked, leaning against the rail and fixing Silver with a worried look.

“With the Guthrie woman,” Silver replied, before throwing his head back and letting out an ostentatious laugh. “Ha-ha!”

“What are you doing?”

“Pretending there’s no daylight between us,” Silver hissed back.

It was Flint’s turn to emit his own put-on guffaw. “Ha-ha! Say what you have to say, Silver.”

Silver drew closer, his lips fixed in a tooth-baring grin. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” he pressed in a hot whisper. “You told Rackham that Guthrie was dead. What’s the big idea? We’re lying to our own people now?”

Below them, Flint could practically sense the twin stares of Ben Gunn and DeGroot. He grit his teeth before replying to Silver in a stifled whisper. “Rackham has always had his own agenda. Killing Eleanor Guthrie was part of that agenda. Surely, I don’t have to explain to you the value of keeping her alive? She will be an invaluable tool in our efforts to take Nassau back from fucking Rogers.”

“What do you need _her_ for? Don’t you have your pet redcoat now to spill all of the Governor’s secrets.”

“Don’t be a fool.”

“Is that what you think of me now?”

“No, Silver, you were always anything but a bloody fool.” And he added loudly, “Ha-ha!”

“Ha-ha-ha!” Silver parroted as his upper lip curled. “We were supposed to make decisions like these together. As equal partners.”

“I wasn’t expecting,” Flint made a wide and all-encompassing motion with his arm, “ _this_.”

“Well, there’s no sign of Rackham’s ship,” Silver pointed out, handing Flint an unfolded spyglass.

Flint put the scope to his his eye, scanning the horizon. There wasn't a sail in sight.

“They abandoned us,” Flint stated with a sour taste in his mouth.

“Under the circumstances, I’m not sure we can really blame them.”

“Whatever it was that Rogers promised them, I cannot imagine the Spanish will stay on the island long after it’s sacked,” Flint spoke as he handed Silver back the spyglass. “That will leave him with decimated forces, not to mention wrecked by guilt since he will also think his wife is dead. We will regroup on the Maroon Island. We will make a new plan. And we will finish him off, once and for all.”

“Time spent with your redcoat has rendered you even more optimistic than usual,” Silver sneered.

“His name is Sebastian Utley.”

“Pretty.”

“What the fuck has gotten into you, Silver?”

His partner stood before him in silence. Out of the corner of his eye, Flint spied the bright flame of Israel Hands’ gnarled face. Watching, always watching.

“Not a fucking thing.” He spat over the side and turned on his crutch to head down the stairs.

***

Madi had only seen it happen once before, but she did not need to be a trained healer to recognize the signs. Once the amount of blood had become so copious that there was no possibility of saving the life inside Eleanor, the only thing she could do was offer her a bottle of rum.

“For the pain,” Madi whispered, passing a cool, wet cloth over Eleanor’s perspiration soaked brow. “It will be over soon,” she promised. “Try to rest.”

The rum was not ideal. Too much of it might have thinned Eleanor’s blood and caused her to bleed out more. Back on the island, there would be herbs and poultices. They just had to make it that far.

Eleanor’s eyes were fixed somewhere on the wall behind Madi’s head, vacant and still. “He did not know,” she finally whispered, her lips barely moving at all. When she blinked, a heavy tear slid down her pale cheek. “I never told him about…” Her hand pressed against her bloodstained skirts.

“I am truly sorry,” Madi said, clenching Eleanor’s other hand inside hers. “You have lost so much today.”

“But he knew,” Eleanor continued with the same faraway stare, “about the Rosario raid. I had told him about that. That endless nightmare that still haunted me. I thought you had died then, too.”

“I know.”

“I was so alone afterwards. It was as if my entire life had been violently torn from me, for no reason at all, except that some man somewhere willed it so. It had nothing to do with me, the Rosario raid… I was one of the lucky ones, the ones who’d survived, and yet…”

“For whatever my role may have been in that subterfuge, I am sorry,” Madi whispered. She did not have time to consider whether this was true. She only wished to provide what meager comfort she could.

“You have _nothing_ to be sorry for,” Eleanor clenched Madi’s hand, her eyes refocusing on her face. “I have lost a lot today, but I have also gained. It must sound so foolish to you, but to have an old friend back in my life, to have _you…_ ”

“It’s not foolish,” Madi said with a soft smile. She looked from Eleanor’s face down to where their hands were still clenched. “I too had remembered you fondly. And, despite my earlier words, I know that my father cared for you.”

“You were a sister to me,” Eleanor said with a smile of her own.

Madi rewet the cloth and passed it down Eleanor’s neck and chest, just as her face contorted from another bout of abdominal pain. “You have always been strong, Eleanor. Be strong again now, for a little longer.”

Eleanor bore down against the pain, eyebrows furrowed in an attempt to chase it away with different thoughts. Suddenly, she smiled, her eyes fixing on Madi’s lips. “You were more than a sister to me.” Madi’s hands trembled as she rang out the cloth. “Do you remember, Madi?”

“We were just children back then. Children playing.”

“Yes.” Eleanor closed her eyes and appeared transported. “We were playing. You were a princess and I was the prince who had come to save you from the evil ogre. I had climbed up to your tower and then...”

“And then I kissed you,” Madi finished the tale.

“And then you kissed me.” Her eyes were open again and Madi felt a bit lost in them. There had been a moment much like this one, right before she had leaned in for the first time to steal a kiss from Silver’s lips, when she had felt equally unmoored.

“And I begged you not to tell your mother, for I suspected she would be very angry were she to learn I had kissed you on the mouth like that.”

“So then I kissed you back.” Eleanor’s hand brushed gently against the slope of Madi’s jaw. “You are so beautiful, Madi. A true princess. And look,” she let out a small laugh, “now you are the one rescuing me!”

“Well, I certainly will not take advantage of you in such a state,” Madi whispered, lifting Eleanor’s hand to her lips.

“Are you in love with him? John Silver?” Eleanor’s face was a kaleidoscope of confusion through which Madi attempted to see Silver as Eleanor must have known him. She herself had only known him such a short time. And she had known Eleanor such a long time ago. There was an ocean of unknown depths in between, for all of them, and who knew what monsters lurked in the deep. Who were they, any of them, truly?

“You should rest,” she repeated, placing another kiss on Eleanor’s forehead. “I’ll see if I can find you something different to wear when you awaken.” If she were Eleanor, she might never wear green again.

***

There was a part of Silver, if he were to be entirely honest with himself, that had been a bit _relieved_ at Spain’s arrival in Nassau. Not that he’d ever admit such a thing out loud, and certainly not to anyone in his immediate vicinity. There was a minute there, aboard the _Walrus_ , when their outcome seemed so bleak that Silver had actually allowed himself to hope for an end to all this madness. Perhaps Flint’s new pet would be distraction enough for him to forget his war against the world. Perhaps he and Madi would just be allowed to settled down together on that island and just be… _people_. Not King and Queen of some imagined Caribbean utopia, but just two people, allowed to exist.

That was of course until they had arrived back into the maroon camp and found it overflowing with new recruits from all over the West Indies. Flint’s revolution was alive and well right there on Maroon Island, where idle chatter among the men had him talking of sacking Boston, no but _fucking Boston,_ in a matter of minutes. Whatever that Utley prick was doing to Flint when they were alone, he was clearly doing it wrong, because Flint was about as likely to hang his sword up as Silver was about to regrow his leg.

As for Madi, it appeared that he’d been simultaneously replaced on that front as well, since she had spent every hour that she wasn’t in the war council room with the Guthrie bint. When pressed about it, all she had told Silver was “I am helping her heal.” And if that had been intended to allay his fears, it failed fantastically in that regard. He supposed the unanswered question of would he be enough for her was being answered loud and clear. It had been answered long before now, he had just been too willfully deaf to heed it.

At last, the sound of approaching footsteps announced the arrival of the man he’d been waiting for. Silver turned and scanned their surroundings once more to ensure that no one would overhear them.

“Morgan,” he nodded at the pirate captain. “How long have you been back?”

“Made landfall just the night prior to your crew’s return,” Tom Morgan replied.

“So, is it real?”

“It’s real.”

“And?”

Morgan reached inside his coat and took out a folded and sealed piece of paper. “For you… I suppose.”

Silver took the piece of paper out of Morgan’s hand and hastily broke the seal, scanning the contents of the letter with a pounding heart. “Thank you, Morgan,” he muttered, his feet already taking him in the opposite direction from his messenger, his eyes still glued to the piece of paper in his hand.

“What shall I do now?” Morgan hollered after him.

“Get back to the camp and shut the fuck up,” Silver replied.

***

Madi moved through the jungle of her island like a cat. The sun had set and the tiki torches sparkled around her like stars that had come down from the heavens. The camp was quiet, save for a distant song someone sang of a far-off land, never to be seen again, and the crackling of the hearth that sprang up here and there underneath a boiling cauldron. She crept silently past the huts, and the soft moans of men and women coupling inside, lulled by the song of the buzzing cicadas. She slipped into Silver’s tent like a nightmoth, as she had done so many times before.

“John.”

Her lover lay on his back, naked as the day he was born, forearm flung over his brow, shading his tired eyes. He was beautiful, she thought. And calm like the sea before the storm, and equally as dangerous.

Silver lifted his arm from his face and raised himself up on one elbow. “Madi. I was not expecting you.”

“I thought I owed you an explanation,” she said with more trepidation than she had felt walking over to Silver’s tent. But now that he was there, so exposed to her eye, and watching her with those same shards of blue that she had once drowned in, it was not so easy to explain. “About Eleanor and myself.”

Silver appeared to consider covering himself up for a moment, but instead he stretched and purred, “I have surmised you have a history.”

“She was my first love,” Madi said with a halting breath.

Silver smiled and looked down towards the floor. “I admit,” he spoke after a moment’s silence, “I had not anticipated that.”

“Neither had I. I did not think I’d ever see her again, or that it would all come flooding back over me like such an unstoppable wave.”

“A wave that had come to wash me away,” Silver mused. “I seem to be incredibly replaceable lately.”

It was Madi’s turn to look down and bite her lip. “The timing isn’t perfect. Nor is the situation very clear-cut. But… Eleanor needs me right now. In a way that I’m not sure you do.”

“Please do not make facile excuses,” Silver replied with a smirk. “I love you, Madi. If you want to be with someone else, just say so.”

“Don’t you?”

“What?”

“Don’t you want to be with someone else?”

He did grab a sheet then and pulled it over himself, hiding both his legs from view as he lay back down upon his cot. “I’m tired. If there is nothing else you need, I’d like to be left alone to rest,” he said, closing his eyes.

Madi turned to go, her hand lingering upon the flap of his tent. “I _do_ love you,” she said without looking back. “We are free to do that, you see. To love more than one person at the same time.”

***

Eleanor’s hands were resting upon her abdomen again, one thumb shoved behind the thick leather belt that was being used to cinch the waist of her new trousers that she’d acquired from Madi’s collection of pilfered goods. The boots that the trousers disappeared into fit her quite comfortably, the broken-in leather hugging her tired feet like a supporting friend’s embrace.

“You look very dashing,” Madi’s voice trickled into Eleanor’s ear from the back and Madi’s arms snaked around her waist with determined resolve. “Like a prince from a fairy tale.”

“And here I thought I finally managed to look like a proper pirate,” Eleanor smiled and turned her head to allow Madi the capture of her lips. “You’ve gotten better at that,” she teased, her tongue playfully lingering along the seam of Madi's mouth.

“I’ve had some practice since we were children.”

“With John Silver?” “You are jealous, dashing pirate prince,” Madi teased, and Eleanor turned, wrapping her arms around Madi’s neck. “This island is not like your father’s house, Ms. Guthrie, we do not own each other here.”

“I would never presume,” Eleanor shook her head and pressed a soft kiss against Madi’s lips again.

“Behave yourself,” Madi admonished, “someone's coming.” Just then, the flap opened, and Flint let himself in, followed closely by his shadow in the guise of Utley.

“Eleanor,” Flint nodded at her, “glad to see you’re doing better.”

“Thanks to Madi’s care,” Eleanor grinned. “Her tender ministrations could likely raise one from the dead.”

“Yes,” Flint mused, “I have certainly observed the effects of her tender care at close quarters.” Flint and Madi exchanged what Eleanor could only describe as a playful look. “Speaking of which, where is Silver?”

“He was not with you?” Madi asked.

“No, we… uh… I,” Flint stammered. “I was otherwise occupied.”

“So were we,” Madi provided without any hesitation.

It was true what they said about speaking of the Devil, because just as a very loud silence descended upon the room, during which time the four present looked each other over with renewed curiosity, the flap rose again and John Silver hobbled into the hut. His eyes traversed the room, taking in the startled expressions on everyone’s faces, and leaned heavily on his crutch, holding it in front of him like a crusader’s shield.

“What’s this, then?”

“Visiting Ms. Guthrie to see if she’s well enough to join our next council,” Flint replied.

“Is she wearing my belt?” Silver nodded towards Eleanor’s waist.

“Did you purchase it with your own money?” Eleanor snipped back.

“She’s wearing my belt and _your_ trousers, Madi,” Silver continued. Truly the symbolism was not lost on anyone in the room, and all Eleanor could do was roll her eyes. “And what’s this doing here?” He nodded towards Utley with the look of unrepressed derision.

“He’s here for Ms. Guthrie’s safety,” Flint explained.

“Oh, of course,” Silver practically dripped with sarcasm, “because as our staunch ally, Ms. Guthrie would require her own personal bodyguard.” Then, as if throwing all fucks to the wind, he added, “Though technically it’s still Mrs. Rogers, is it not?”

“John, she is my guest,” Madi interceded, “and you will not speak to her this way in my home. Is that understood?”

Eleanor caught Flint and Utley exchange a look, then Flint shrugged with gentle resignation and squeezed Utley’s shoulder.

“Silver, I’m glad you could join us. I’ve been wanting to have a word with you.”

Silver seemed caught off guard by that. His stance adjusted as he moved his crutch off to the side, his body opening up towards Flint.

“Privately?” Flint added, motioning towards the flap.

“Lieutenant,” Eleanor started but caught herself. “Utley. Will you please remain and catch me up on the recent developments?”

Flint and Silver disappeared one behind the other and Eleanor looked over towards Madi with a sheepish grin. “He’s going to murder me in my sleep, you realize.”

“Over my own naked and sleeping body,” Madi replied, pressing her lips against Eleanor’s again, entirely unphased by Utley’s presence.

***

Mrs. Hudson had all of Eleanor’s clothes laid out upon the bed. Woodes Rogers was not sure exactly what they were supposed to be doing with them. They did not even have a body to prepare for burial. How could she have betrayed him like this, betrayed him _twice_ , for without doubt her death had also been a betrayal of a sort. She was a woman, and therefore prone to a woman’s weakness, clearly sentimental, easily swayed by the opinions of others. It was the only explanation he could come up with for why she had fired upon him. Why she had attempted to deal with the pirate uprising. And why she had died.

If only she had not been so stubborn!

_Well, which was it? Was I stubborn or weak?_

The ghost in the corner of the room was pitiless and elusive. It did not so much haunt Rogers as it taunted him.

_Is it possible that you never knew me at all?_

“Enough!” he exploded, shaking Mrs. Hudson from her contemplation of the stages of Eleanor’s life, laid out upon the bed like exposed words of a diary. “Stop playing with her things, it isn’t going to bring her back!”

The men who had reunited with them after the raid, the men who had been of Eleanor’s party, had sworn that they had seen her depart this life with their own eyes. And apparently Utley as well, who had heroically given his life in an attempt to save her. Rogers had half a mind to hang them for daring to return empty handed, for daring to return at all having failed in their one duty of protecting her. At least the lieutenant had had the decency to fall in battle, like a man, not like a dog returning home with his tail between his legs.

Upon further consideration, it would not have made him any more friends among his men, if he were to be seen hanging their own. He was not really in a position to lose the only faction he had for allies at that point.

A knock upon the door intruded into his thoughts. “I beg your pardon, my Lord.”

“Have you found the body?” Rogers asked, clenching his fists so that his nails dug into the flesh of his palms.

“No, my Lord. A ringleader of the pirate militia. He surrendered himself. Said he would only speak to you directly.”

The ringleader was a hideous giant, with a face gnarled by recent violence and a beard that was as ferocious as it was unkempt. Rogers could not help but note that the prisoner had biceps the size of his own head. He’d been a bit of a storyteller as well, that one. It was hard to know, what with pirates being so fond of creating their own lore, whether the bearded giant had been telling a word of truth or simply spinning a practiced yarn. According to him, he’d been the bloody maker of Long John Silver himself, the true arm behind the rebellion in the interior, the true power behind a borrowed name which he'd made legend.

“And why, pray tell, are you here telling me any of this?” Rogers finally asked.

“They all turned on me,” the bearded man squeezed out through his teeth as if the words were poison. “Discarded what I'd done for them, the sacrifices I made, and left me for dead. And I want them all to pay for it.”

“What exactly do you propose?”

“An alliance. One in which I give you some information that is very pertinent to your situation here, and you guarantee me my freedom and my revenge.”

“I’m listening.”

“You have something they want: Nassau. You can still use it to bargain with them. To lure them out of their stronghold and meet you on your terms. And they have something you want, so you can suggest a trade.”

“The cache of gems? The Spanish have already written it off and accepted the sacking of Nassau as rightful compensation.”

The man before Rogers smirked and scratched his scraggly beard. “Hm,” he uttered, mulling Rogers over as if he’d been some archaic god, weighing the worth of his soul. “Everyone knows if you don’t repay your debts, Governor, the only thing that you have waiting for you for all your efforts is debtors’ prison. You _need_ that money. And…” the man paused, looking Rogers up and down again, in that same way that made him feel incredibly measured and found wanting. “There’s something else you can take back from them, if you need additional motivation.”

“What’s that, then?”

The man wiped at the corner of his mouth with his thumb, picking at the fresh scab that had grown over a recent wound. “Your wife.”


	3. The Covenant

The fresh ocean breeze carried the clanging of swords on its breath, swooping over the cliffs and the four combatants who lunged and parried around each other in turns.

“Switch!” Flint commanded, and turned to face Eleanor instead of Madi. “Advance!”

And the dance began again. Silver watched from his rocky perch, his crutch laying at his side, next to his own sword and two loaded pistols. Madi had been a quick study, as one would expect, and managed to hold her ground against Utley’s far superior height with relative ease and her usual poise. Eleanor Guthrie, on the other hand, fought like a fury. He suspected that had Flint wanted to disarm her, she would simply lunge forward and tear at her opponent with claws and teeth.

 _I want to teach you how to fight and not die_ , Flint had said not so long ago. Right here, in this place, which they had shared with no one but each other. Now, Silver watched as Flint threw his sword into the sand and, laughing like a man without a single burden or care, turned and pulled Utley into a warm kiss. His thumb lingered over the sharp edges of the former redcoat’s jaw as he nibbled on his lower lip as if taking a bite of overripe fruit.

Silver looked down onto the sand beneath his foot, his hand reaching into the folds of his coat, where a wrinkled piece of paper burned a hole right down through his flesh.

“I had no idea you were such a good teacher,” Flint’s voice carried to Silver’s ear as Madi sank down onto the sand next to him, her perspiring back leaning against his rock.

“And you are downright despotic,” Utley teased back.

“Surely my reputation precedes me, in that regard?”

“He specializes in torturing those closest to him,” Eleanor spoke, catching her breath as Madi tossed over a skin full of refreshing water.

“Especially women and cripples,” Silver muttered under his breath.

“Oh, stop your moping,” Madi whispered, bumping her elbow against his good leg. “You’re going to let the green eyed monster consume you whole, John Silver.”

“I’m not jealous of whatever you might do with Ms. Guthrie,” Silver insisted. “She might be quite the rake among the ladies, but she’s not exactly what one would call a… uh…” Silver paused, looking for a way to call Eleanor an inconstant floozy without actually having to say it. “Reliable,” he completed with a grimace at his own cowardice.

Madi looked up at him, her beautiful eyes reflecting the sun like amber pendants and creasing from her smile. “But I was not speaking of Ms. Guthrie.”

“Madi, I…”

“His mind is not truly fused with yours, regardless of what your men say, he won’t actually know what you want unless you tell him,” she said with a self-satisfied smirk.

“It’s not… what you think,” Silver supplied and picked up his crutch in an attempt to make an inconspicuous exit, when he eyed the form of Hands striding up along the path with a look of perpetual disapproval on his unfortunate face.

“Havin’ a nice picnic, are ye?” Hands let out with his usual charm. “War enjoyable for ye? Nice romantic time?”

“Fuck off, Hands,” Silver snarled. “What’s the news?”

“Poncy gits pulled up waving a white flag with a message from the Gov’ner.” Hands extended a piece of paper towards Silver. “It’s addressed to the Captain, but I wager yer close enough.”

Flint’s shadow fell across Silver’s, the closeness of his body radiating heat like the sun. “How the fuck did they find us?”

Silver’s fingers toyed with the folded letter in his grasp, not entirely committed to handing it over to Flint, who himself made no move to reach for it.

“You did make a big point of letting the survivors go back with a message to Rogers after the last battle on this island,” Silver pointed out and Flint’s eyebrows creased in reply. “Shall I?” Flint nodded and Silver quickly unsealed the message from Rogers. He bit down against the smile of complacency that threatened to surface upon his lips. “He knows Eleanor is alive. He’s threatening to bring the entire Spanish fleet of Havannah to this island if we don’t hand her over, along with the cache of gems. In exchange for those two things, he says he’ll hand over Nassau and withdraw from the West Indies.”

Flint tore the letter out of Silver’s hand, scanning it himself before balling it up into his fist. “I thought you said your men would be loyal,” he hissed out of the corner of his mouth towards Utley.

“They wouldn’t have betrayed us,” Utley responded with admirable certainty. “They think Rogers is a fucking maniac.”

“You’re not thinking of complying,” Madi stepped forward.

Flint looked over at Silver after a quick glance at Eleanor, his expression unreadable except to the man who had made it his life’s mission to learn to read each of his looks.

“Perhaps we should speak of this apart,” Silver muttered.

“We have to assume he wants Eleanor more than he wants the cache,” Flint finally spoke. “And we can’t risk having them come here. With Spain’s superior force, your home would be destroyed.”

“Wait,” Madi held up her hand. “Are you seriously suggesting that we hand over Eleanor and _not_ the cache?”

“That’s exactly what he’s suggesting,” Eleanor stated with quiet fortitude. “He wants to call my husband’s bluff. But you should know him better than that by now. Leaving with only me for him is simply leaving empty-handed.”

“Then we give him what he wants, _in total_ ,” Silver emphasized, spreading his hands as if it was the obvious solution. “Is that not the same deal you were going to make with her yourself?” he asked, pointing at Eleanor with his crutch. “The cache in exchange for Nassau?”

“That was before…”

“Before what?”

“We have men now,” Flint spoke closely, “we have resources now. This war, for the first time since it begun, is actually winnable.”

“Not if Rogers brings the entire fucking Spanish armada here to raze this place to the ground!” Silver snapped. “You wanted to make a home in Nassau, and now Nassau is being handed over to you on a goddamn silver platter. All you have to do is reach out and take it!”

“Nassau is in ashes,” Flint snarled. “We’ll have to rebuild it from scratch. Without that cache, soon the men who have come here to fight would abandon us once they realise a fight isn’t to be had.”

“Is it _war_ you wanted or to make a _life_!” Silver exploded.

“Shut up, both of you!” Madi yelled, her fingers pressing into the indents of her temples. “You do not get to make this decision alone.”

It was Utley’s voice that troubled the uneasy silence that had descended upon the group. “Ma’am, if we do not at least appear to give in to his demands, he will come here and burn down your home. He will kill your men, he will enslave your women and children, he will not leave a single hut standing. You do not know him as I know him. He is a man capable of tremendous cruelty, especially when he feels his pride has been wounded.”

“You sound like Rackham,” Flint muttered under his breath.

“Utley’s right,” Eleanor said, taking Madi’s hand into her. “If I return to him, I can always claim that I had been a hostage. He will not harm me. But he would certainly cause harm to all of you if I stay.”

Madi’s hand pulled away. She bent down and picked up the sword that she’d been practicing with, squeezing the flexible blade with her hands. “The cache belongs to all of us,” she said. “I need time to think.”

“Perhaps we should all take time to think,” Flint suggested watching Madi walk away towards the camp. “And let cooler heads prevail.”

“What the fuck does that mean?” Silver snarled.

“You should go after her,” Flint prodded at Eleanor with his elbow.

“Do not dismiss me like some guileless child,” she hissed in reply.

Flint shook his head, moving close enough to Eleanor so that only she could hear him speak. “This might be your last chance to be with her,” he whispered.

***

There was always another way. _Always_. The problem with men was that they could never see beyond the presented options, which was odd, because Silver himself had always espoused the philosophy that between options one and two there was always an option number three, if you only wanted to find it enough. Well, Madi was really fucking motivated.

She could not put Eleanor’s life, or rather any chance of a life she might have with Eleanor, before the lives of her people. The cache, however, was too critical a piece in their arsenal to risk given the state of the uprising. Flint had been willing to part with it before, and she had supported him. But that was before - before Spain, before their ranks swelled, before Eleanor bled out before her eyes and was reborn a new woman. The woman they had both wished her to be a very long time ago, when the only freedom they’d needed was the freedom of a haystack in the back of Richard Guthrie’s stable.

She did not want to lose either the cache or Eleanor. And she could not risk the fleet of Havannah reducing her island to ashes as they’d done with New Providence Island. There was only one thing left to do.

“Kofi,” she shook her childhood friend awake. “Kofi, gather our best men and your weapons. We’re leaving for Nassau.”

There was only one way to keep everything that she wanted to hold on to, and that was to kill Woodes Rogers.

***

“Fuck!” Silver had torn right into Flint’s tent. “This is all your fucking fault!” he snarled, throwing a piece of paper over Flint’s naked chest.

“I doubt it, I’ve been asleep this whole time,” Flint mumbled, rubbing his eyes and taking in the scene before him. “You look like hell, what has happened?” He lifted the piece of paper off the floor, where it had landed having slid sadly down his body. “What’s this?”

“A letter. From Madi.”

“Has she taken Eleanor and run off?”

“Worse.” Silver paced up and down the small space, his nostrils flaring like a ravening racehorse. “I should have never let you teach her to fence. I should have never left the two of you alone together.”

“Yeah,” Flint mused, “I’m sure that would have gone over really well. Madi seems like the type to obey without a single contrary word.” He unfolded the letter and slowly read the message scribbled inside in beautiful cursive.

_Dear John,_

_By the time you read this, Kofi and I will be well on our way to Nassau. We will take the resistance routes to avoid any of Rogers’ men and fall upon him before he knows to expect us. If our mission succeeds, then you can arrive safely with Eleanor and the cache, knowing that our mutual enemy is no longer an obstacle to our plans and Nassau is ours. Should we fail in our mission, know that I have given my life to keep my home and my people safe, and thus I have no regrets. Remember that I truly did love you and that I always wanted you to be happy. Do try to be happy._

_With love,_

_Madi_

Flint looked up at Silver with a helpless look on his face. “You have to believe I had nothing to do with this. I would never have put Madi in harm’s way like this.”

“So you admit she’s put herself in harm’s way!”

“That woman knows her own mind!”

“ _Fuck!_ ”

“We must go to Nassau,” Flint stated decisively. “And bring Eleanor.”

“And the cache.”

Flint’s eyebrows knitted together. “We must think this through…”

“If something has happened to her…”

“John, _please_.” Flint’s hands squeezed around the tension of Silver’s shoulders. “We must be clear-headed about this. When you and I are of the same mind, there is nothing we have not yet been able to do. I believe that. I _trust_ it.” He paused, his eyes staring into the depth of Silver’s soul. “Do you?”

***

So far, Rogers had to admit, that filthy Bones character had not steered him wrong. He’d revealed all the secret routes that resistance fighters used all over New Providence Island, which had led to the successful capture of the latest bunch of would-be assassins. It wasn’t surprising - he knew the levels of lowlives that he’d been dealing with. He was about to execute them all then and there, when Bones had halted him mid-command.

“That’s Silver’s woman,” he’d smirked with his cut up face that Rogers refused to acknowledge mirrored his own in forced asymmetry. “We could not have planned this better ourselves.”

It was with much pleasure then that Woodes Rogers had lined up the captured maroons in the sightline of the _Walrus_ and personally shot them one by one while Flint and his crew watched.

“Bring her forward,” he’d nodded towards their most prized prisoner. “If my wife and that chest are not aboard that fucking ship, you die,” he hissed, leveling his gun against her brow.

“They are signaling us,” Bones’ voice sounded behind him. Rogers had lowered his pistol and reached out for a spyglass, so he could get a clear view of the _Walrus’_ decks.

She stood between Flint and the man Rogers had to assume was Long John Silver, although the latter looked much shorter than he'd been led to believe. Her hair was pinned up at the back of her head and she wore one of her dresses that she had ordered made around the time of their wedding. The dress itself looked worse for wear, but Eleanor looked well enough. Which was good because he’d hate to be giving her the talking to he had planned for their reunion had she been injured or ill. After all, he wasn’t an utter _monster_.

There was a commotion on board, during which time Flint and Silver appeared to be exchanging heated words, and then, two men had dragged something forward and lifted it above the rail. So there it was, Rackham’s stolen treasure, the cause and symbol of so much grievous injury to himself and his reputation.

“Signal for them to follow us,” Rogers ordered and turned his back on the _Walrus_. “To Skeleton Island, Mr. Bones,” he said with a crooked sneer. “So far, everything is going exceedingly according to plan.” He cast a look at Madi who in her stillness resembled a granite statue more than a woman. “Take her below. Keep her _alive_ , for now.”

He’d have use of her, Rogers hoped. If those murderers and thieves were willing to trade the last of the Urca treasure for her release, he could only surmise that she too would give up anything to guarantee the life of her pirate lover. She was a woman, after all, which meant she was ruled by her heart and whims rather than reason. He would convince her to present that treaty to her people, or he would burn her entire island to the ground, just as he planned on doing to the _Walrus_.

***

It was a very peculiar position to be in - at the bottom. Utley expected that his situation would be unique, to say the least, possibly volatile even. He expected distrust from the rest of the _Walrus_ men. He even expected hostility. What he did not expect was that they would simply be giving him such a wide berth. Well, most of them, anyways, though from what he’d heard, you could not exactly describe Israel Hands as a _Walrus_ man.

“So, how does it work with ye two?” Hands was asking, sitting across the table from Utley in the mess, as they sailed onwards toward an unknown destination of their showdown with Rogers. “Say like… do ye take turns or what?”

Utley was not, by nature, a violent man. He’d joined the navy out of a sense of duty, coupled with the furtive desire to be stuck at sea with a bunch of burly men and not a single skirt in sight. But something about Hands’ physiognomy and demeanor truly was just asking for a face-punching.

“Or do ye just go at it together, all at once?”

“What the fuck are you actually asking me?” Utley snapped. “You do not seriously want to know how I… and… Flint??”

“Not _you_ and Flint! I’m askin’ how ye and _Silver_ figure out when each one of ye gets to have Flint!”

“This is absurd,” Utley pronounced, dropping the rest of his bread into his empty bowl and rising from the bench. “Don’t you have duties to attend to on this crew?”

“Aye, my duty is to make sure Silver don’t get _fucked_ , unless it’s in a way that is pleasurable to him.”

“Well, it’s been a pleasure speaking with you, Mr. Hands, as always,” Utley muttered as he sauntered away in the general direction of Flint.

To be entirely honest, he didn’t really know where to look for his lover, although the captain’s cabin seemed a logical place to start. That was where he'd last seen, or rather heard Flint, in the middle of a very loud and spirited conversation with Silver, which was only obscured by occasional claps of thunder. He was just about to start the climb up to the quarterdeck when a pair of familiar thighs and an incredibly familiar crotch halted him in his tracks. He raised his eyes up, past the thick belt, up the thin material of the burgundy shirt that clung with perspiration to Flint’s chest underneath that coat that he always insisted on wearing, finally landing on that holiest of holies - the soft hollow right above Flint’s collar bones. Another few inches higher, and Flint was smiling down at him.

“Looking for me?” Utley asked, hopefully.

“I was, in fact,” Flint said quietly. “And what are you doing?”

“Running away from a terribly awkward conversation. And you? Are you running away from Silver?”

“He’s in a mood,” Flint shrugged as he brushed past Utley down the stairs. His hand lingered on Utley’s hip as he whispered, “I’m in a bit of a mood myself.”

Utley followed Flint into the hold without another word and slammed him against a heavy beam with a grunt. Their mouths collided with a flurry of moans, while Utley’s fingers undid the buttons along the front of Flint’s breeches.

“I worry about you,” Utley admitted in between kisses. “Your plan is reckless and fraught with risk.” He lowered himself to his knees as he talked, pulling the rough material lower to expose the bones at the top of Flint’s hips.

“Says the man who quit the service to follow a pirate to an island run by maroons,” Flint snorted. His hand rested at the top of Utley’s shaved head, fingers stroking firmly against the scalp.

“I never claimed to be a great strategist,” Utley pointed out as he pulled out Flint’s semi-engorged cock. “Anyways, I’d hate for anything to happen to you.”

“Now, are you talking to me or to my prick?”

“All I see is one huge prick right here,” Utley motioned towards Flint’s entire body from head to foot.

Flint’s eyes lit up and he grinned down at Utley with all his teeth. His cock gave an involuntary twitch as Utley’s hand wrapped around the base, and then Utley’s mouth was around it, engulfing it, letting the comforting heaviness of it settle against his tongue. _This_ , Utley thought as he hollowed out his cheeks and slid hungrily up and down Flint’s shaft, _this is fucking worth getting hanged for_.

***

The hull of the _Eurydice_ hovered in the mist of Skeleton Island like a ghost above the waterline. The deck too was hidden from view by the heavy fog that hung like miasma in the narrow strait, wafting over the waters that stirred with a forest that ran as far deep as it ran high once you hit the slopes of the island. An entire submarine jungle, inhabited by the spirits of the drowned and the mad.

Eleanor shifted in the longboat, pulling her dress skirt down over her boots. The bloodstains had mostly come out, but if you looked close enough, you could still make out the brown-edged stains that spread over the embroidered green lawn of the expensive silk. Behind her, Israel Hands whistled an old pirate shanty while the oarsmen heaved and sliced the stillness of the underwater jungle with their wooden blades. John Silver, inscrutable as the future and just as terrifying, sat across from her at the prow. His eyes were fixed on the hull of the _Eurydice_ , within whose bowels Madi was being kept.

Less than an hour ago, they both watched from the quarterdeck of the _Walrus_ as Flint and Utley hauled the cache to the rocky bank of Skeleton Island in the early hours of dawn. She had not slept all night. She did not know when she would sleep again. Did _she_ sleep, her imprisoned princess? Did she know Eleanor was coming for her?

The ladder dangled before her and she set her feet upon the rungs, one careful step at the time. She looked up at the figure of Silver who managed to navigate the climb with surprising ease, considering his situation. Briefly, she wondered what it was like, to carry such hidden strength. Was this what Madi had seen when she had first met him? Such was the advantage of the clean slate, Eleanor supposed: where she only saw a man mutilated inside and out, unrecognizable from the man she knew before, Madi had seen a fighter, a survivor, a beacon of change. If Eleanor had Silver’s upper body strength, she would have enfolded Madi in her embrace, and she never would have let her go. The entire fleet of Havannah would not take Madi away from her, not again, _not again_.

Two redcoats had reached overboard and helped haul her onto the deck. She could make out her husband’s face over the wide expanse of Silver’s shoulder. For a moment, her mind had played a trick on her, making her want to go to him, to embrace him, to tell him how scared she’d been, how sad she’d been, to tell him how their future had bled out like grains of sand in an hourglass onto the floorboards of the _Walrus_.

But it was only a moment. The way Rogers was looking at her left no doubt in her mind as to the fate that would await her if she were to remain there, in his world.

“Captain Flint killed one of my men and managed to haul the cache to shore,” Silver spoke. He moved to the side, letting Rogers have a clear view of Eleanor’s form. “I came in the hopes that my presence, coupled with the return of Mrs. Rogers, might buy us some time before you reacted to this news.”

“If you’ve come in the hopes of trading one woman for another, you’ve wasted a trip,” Roger replied with the coolness of a serpent.

Undaunted, Silver continued. “I was rather hoping we could work together to remedy the situation.”

“What sort of remedy do you have in mind?”

Eleanor’s eyes lingered on the man standing at her husband’s side. _Billy Bones, what the fuck has happened to you?_ She had almost failed to recognize him. Flint’s old bosun had been oblivious to her observation, as his eyes bored into Silver’s face with an odd mix of hatred and glee.

“Give me six of your best men,” Silver said, “and I will personally accompany them to the island, track Captain Flint down, and retrieve the cache.”

“That’s not enough,” Billy Bones spoke up as he stepped forward. “Retrieving the cache is not enough anymore.”

Silence wrapped around Silver like mist around the _Eurydice_ ’s hull.

“I will bring you Captain Flint’s dead body,” he finally squeezed out, “or your men shall kill me.”

Rogers and Bones exchanged a brief look. “That is acceptable,” Rogers nodded. “You have three hours to come back with Flint’s body and the cache. If you are not back by then, I will start to lose patience. And Mr. Silver, I am not by nature a very patient man.”

He took two steps in Eleanor’s direction and her body coiled up despite herself, breath halting in her chest that suddenly felt crushed, as if she had still been wearing her corset.

“You and I will have much to discuss, _darling_ ,” Rogers hissed into her face. “Take my wife below,” he said as he grabbed Eleanor’s arm and drew her towards the grizzled shadow of Billy Bones. “Make sure she is secure. We would not want any pirates to menace her again, would we?”

Eleanor cast a last look at Silver, his knuckles white against the hold of his crutch. He struck her as the statue of Don Juan’s Commander. An avenging angel about to come to life to drag his villain into Hell.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know things look grim, but I promise they are going to get better. I trust it. Do you? ;)


	4. The Unraveling

**Maroon Island, a few months prior**

Silver’s throat was utterly parched as if he’d swallowed a handful of sand that they’d been dueling upon for the past two hours. Flint was relentless, putting him through his paces like the most staunch of taskmasters. Silver preferred it this way. He did not want to be coddled or catered to or be given extra breaks to let his one extant leg rest. He needed to become this thing that Flint was attempting to forge him into: an extension of his blade.

But Flint did not make it easy. He was relentless, yes, but he was also patient, he was kind, he… He glistened in the sunlight like the sea itself. The way that his sweat pooled in the hollow of his neck, the way his shirt collar would open up just a little too wide, exposing a freckled expanse of his shoulder, it all just left Silver utterly undone.

And the fucker had no idea, did he? But how could he not? What more did Silver have to do to transmute himself into this _thing_ that Flint should want? _Give unto me your darkness, and let me carry it._

Flint parried a thrust from Silver’s blade, using his own momentum to sweep Silver off his foot and sending him tumbling backwards onto the sand. Silver had dropped his crutch, capturing Flint’s shirt with his free hand, making them both drop like two unwieldy sacks of rocks. Flint’s body settled over Silver’s, heavy and warm, and he had to use every fiber of his self-control not to wrap all of his remaining limbs around it.

Flint was laughing, one hand braced against the sand, the other gently cupping the back of Silver’s head. “Now, that is not a maneuver I would recommend trying on a different opponent,” he said softly enough for Silver to have to suppress an embarrassing moan. “I imagine you’ve had enough for today,” he said and rolled onto his side, freeing Silver’s body from his weight.

Silver was a fish washed up on land. His mouth opened and closed as if attempting to capture the drops of air he would not be able to process with his useless gills. His eyes burned with something too close to unshed tears.

“I _wanted_ to tell you,” he whispered, staring up into the whiteness of the bright afternoon sky over his head, blinded by the light and the lingering heat of Flint’s proximity. “Please, believe me.”

“I believe you,” Flint said quietly and rose to his feet, shaking the grains of sand off his clothes. His arm was stretched towards Silver like a lifeline. He grasped Flint’s hand with his own and allowed himself to get pulled upright again.

He had come so close to saying so much.

***

**Back on the _Eurydice_**

The runaway slave girl had dared to give him lip. It mattered little now. None of those rebellious upstarts would survive the day if Woodes Rogers had any say in it. These were the people his imbecilic wife had attempted to surrender Nassau to. These were the savages she had grown up around, collaborated with, _fucked_. That place had always had its teeth in her, poor Eleanor. Without his firm hand to guide her, she was so easily led astray.

He’d let her stew long enough. Rogers pushed open the door to the small holding room which had been turned into a temporary cell for his wife. He could not very well leave her chained up next to the rest of the ballast, but he did not wish her to think herself on equal footing by allowing her into the captain’s cabin. 

“I see you’ve been made comfortable,” he said, taking control of his emotions so as not to let her get the upper hand.

She had not risen to greet him. “This is all you have to say to me,” she spoke with haughty indignation, “after all you’ve put me through? After all I’ve had to endure because you thought your plan was better than mine?”

“You _fired_ upon me!” Rogers’ temper flared despite his best intentions to keep it in check. “Made a deal with the enemy, to hand Nassau - the thing you’ve always wanted more than anything in the world - back to them! To pirates and slaves!”

“You’ve left me to pursue your vendetta,” Eleanor snapped back without a drop of remorse. “Left me surrounded by murderers like Berringer, savages worse than the pirates you claim to despise so much! Alone, defenseless…” She paused and then her face turned into a grimace of practiced cruelty as she hissed, “ _Pregnant_.”

Rogers’ blood rushed in a torrent from his face and he took a faltering step forward. “Pregnant?”

“I did not wish to tell you like that. Not when you were engaged in the fight for our lives. But then you made a decision, Woodes. You decided rather than to heed my supplication, rather than to rely upon my reason and fortitude, that you should dismiss me, and bring down my worst nightmare upon me. Bring down upon me the same thing that took my mother’s life!”

Rogers had not actually processed a single word of what she’d been saying to him. “Pregnant?” he repeated, as if in a dream. “You’re carrying our child?”

“You brought back Spain,” she continued, the note of disgust coloring her voice with roughness. “The same thing that took my mother’s life,” she repeated. “That had tried to take my own. And had, at last, succeeding in taking the life of our child.”

“What are you saying, Eleanor?”

“Our child is dead.” Her eyes lifted to meet his. “And it may as well have been by your hand. The only reason I am alive is because those _pirates and slaves_ took me in and cared for me.”

“Eleanor, I had no idea.” He took a step towards her, his arms ready to envelop her. Yet oddly, she drew from him. “I would never have put you in such danger… I thought you were safe in the fort… I thought…”

“You thought you knew better than me.”

“I did!” he exploded. “I still do! Remember your place!”

“I too am nothing to you but _chattel_!”

“You are being incredibly obstinate,” Rogers shot back with as much composure as he could muster under the circumstances. This woman, like most women, was infuriating. He’d been a fool to think she had been different, that she could stand at his side as an equal. She was pirate born and would die like a pirate. “I have had my fill of obstinate fillies for one day!” he shouted. “You women, you do not know what is good for you. That other one,” he pointed beyond the door of the hold, “the one I captured in an assassination attack against me and have kindly allowed to keep breathing till now, I offered her back her life, and the life of her crippled lover out there, in exchange for no more than a return to relative lawfulness. And do you know what she said?”

“I imagine she rather told you to go fuck yourself,” Eleanor replied with a sneer.

***

**Maroon Island, a few weeks prior**

“Silver, I’m glad you could join us. I’ve been wanting to have a word with you.”

Silver was caught off guard by that. His stance adjusted as he moved his crutch off to the side, his body opening up towards Flint.

“Privately?” Flint added, motioning towards the flap, and Silver followed him outside without another word.

They had trailed along the path by the sussurating stream, into the forest where a few months prior they had laid Rogers’ superior force to waste. They walked in silence. They had gotten to the point in the last months where their silences had taken on a comfortable aura that they could both stay wrapped in, neither one feeling the need to disrupt the moment of peace. This time, the silence was oppressive, and it forced itself around Silver like an iron maiden, with too many sharp edges.

“Soon, another assault will begin,” Flint broke the heavy veil that had descended around them. 

The damned letter that Morgan brought was still burning against Silver’s skin in the pocket of his coat, it’s contents branded onto the inside of his eyelids.

“There’s something I need to tell you,” he said.

“I must know that you are still with me,” Flint interrupted.

Silver stopped in his tracks, awash in a sea of confusion. “I’m still here,” he replied, losing his track of thought.

“Physically, yes,” Flint stated with a sad smile. “But in your heart, you have pulled away from me. You are angry with me. Is it because of Utley?” Before he’d given Silver the opportunity to properly reel from the question and respond, he continued. “Because I was hoping you would be able to accept that part of me. I thought you had.”

“It’s not because of Utley,” Silver responded, perhaps too fast. “Well, not the way you mean,” he added, biting his tongue. There would be no backing away from that statement. He would be called upon to explain.

“Then in what way?”

“When you had told me about your… history… with Thomas, it was as if a door had been opened. Just a crack, and I thought… Well,” Silver laughed at himself before continuing. “Well, I suppose I thought that you still carried the torch for his memory. That no man could ever sit in the place that Thomas once occupied. I thought… And then there was Utley, so… I had been wrong.”

“You’re angry with me because you think I am being unfaithful to Thomas’ memory?” Flint asked, heat flaring up beneath his collar, making his neck flush crimson with mounting rage.

“No!” Silver quickly interjected. “I’m angry because there is Utley… and not me. That there was something wrong with _me_.”

He stopped. He could not walk anymore, so he sank against the closest tree. And Flint… well, Flint was silent. Silver supposed he was weighing his strategic options in this case. Doubtlessly, he still _needed_ Silver for his rebellion, and he was thinking of a way to let him down that was at least somewhat gracious.

Flint opened his mouth and then closed it. He rubbed his brow ridge with the back of his fist and also lowered himself to the ground next to Silver.

“You were with Madi,” Flint said in a voice that was barely louder than a horse whisper. “I did not know that you were… an option. There is absolutely _nothing_ wrong with you, John.”

“ _Of course_ there is!” Silver let out in anguish. He hated the tears that crept up into his eyes and into his throat, making him croak like a pathetic toad. “You’ve known me for long enough now to have made me your partner. And him - you’ve known him for fucking _weeks_. You don’t want me.” 

_No one wants me._ That thought, that small thought of a small boy, it still haunted him, it tortured him still.

Suddenly, his hand was very warm, and he looked down to see Flint’s palm settled over and around it, that thick, endearingly crooked thumb tracing his own.

“I want you,” Flint whispered without meeting his eyes. “I _love_ you, John.” Flint’s hand rose and brushed Silver’s hair out of his face, tucking the braid behind his ear. “I didn’t know you could… You didn’t say.”

Silver swallowed. Flint’s face was so close, right there, all he had to do was lean forward and capture his lips with his own. “I can… I do… Please, Captain.” He _needed_ Flint to close that last distance between them, he wasn’t strong enough to do it himself.

“You are _perfect_ ,” Flint whispered. 

And suddenly they were no longer two people, but rather a singular monster of seven flailing limbs and two heads. Their mouths pulled and tugged at each other, attempting to taste the very center of each other’s soul. Silver moaned, the sound reverberated deep down his captain's throat and was met with an echo rising up out of Flint. They fell to the ground together, rolling and grinding against each other like feral beasts. Silver wanted, need more, all of it, pulling at Flint’s clothes to allow himself to finally feel the softness and warmth of his flesh. Flint’s lips were everywhere, kissing his mouth, his nose, his eyes, nuzzling all along the column of his neck, teeth grazing against his earlobes, against the hinge of his jaw. He was being devoured and it was good, it was _right_.

“James,” he moaned the name that he had only dared to speak in his dreams. “ _James_.”

“I love you,” Flint swore like an oath into Silver’s open mouth. “You idiot,” he imprinted across his lips.

***

**Back on Skeleton Island**

The birds of Skeleton Island, Silver suspected, were man-eating assholes. They swarmed like the locusts and circled above one’s head like ravenous vultures, and occasionally would swoop down from on high like fire breathing dragons of yore and unleash a volley of shit that would have put the cows back in England to shame.

“Did you hear what I said?” someone shouted. “I said which… bloody…. _waaaaaay_???” The redcoat who had the general lack of foresight to address him this way was standing a few inches away from Silver’s face, his own face porous and livid.

“Well I’m not a bloody fortune teller, am I?” Silver retorted, pushing the man off with the handle of his crutch. 

“The lore has it you’re of one mind,” the man insisted. “That you know his mind as well as your own.”

“I’m sure the lore also says I gave up my leg in exchange for the ability to conjure the plague so don’t _test_ me,” Silver hissed back. “We’re never going to find him in time like this.” He made a big show of looking around, as if attempting to ferret out which way Flint could possibly have gone. “You three, go that way. You three with me and Hands.” He had made sure to name the obnoxious upstart as one of the men to accompany him. “And for fuck’s sakes don’t kill him if he doesn’t have the cache on him!” he shouted after the departing company.

***

**Maroon Island, a few weeks prior**

Flint’s hands burned like two brands into Silver’s skin and he shivered. The touch of Flint’s mouth traveling down the column of his neck had Silver’s body bending like a bow, clutching at the captain’s shoulder blades with desperate fingers. The soft brush of his beard rubbed against the sensitive patch of skin right above Silver’s collar bones, causing him to let out an embarrassing, soft moan. And then Flint was staring into his eyes again, desire, disbelief, desperation all painted there, in the dark emeralds of his irises that glowed in the soft candlelight of his tent.

“You’re afraid,” Flint whispered and Silver shook his head, voiceless. “Worried then?” Again Silver had no reply, only the burning need to feel every part of Flint pressed against every part of him. “We don’t have to…” Silver’s mouth sealed over those words, teeth nibbling on Flint’s lower lip, making it swell underneath his assault.

“I need to feel you,” Silver breathed, pressing Flint’s hand more firmly into the flesh of his hip. And then he was being shifted, turned, gently prodded apart, carefully enveloped. Flint’s beard now moved like a brush over the vertebrae of his neck and his upper back, teeth gently kneading at the tight muscle there. “Don’t stop,” Silver whispered, because the touch of Flint’s hand was still uncertain. And he had lied, because he _was_ afraid. Afraid that at any moment Flint might change his mind and ask him to leave.

His own hair was moved like a veil away and it fell over his eyes as the back of his neck felt suddenly exposed and vulnerable and at the mercy of the elements. He pushed back against Flint, into the heat of his body that he wanted to wear over himself like a mantle. He’d waited far too long for this moment. And when it arrived, words fell from his mouth like a benediction, rocking back against Flint, whose body had at last come to meld with his own. He filled Silver, stretched him to his limits, long before they were ever _this_. His mind and body were already full of Flint. This - this final joining was nothing more than an inevitable summation of their journey.

He knew that now. He could laugh and cry for not having realized it before.

“ _James_!”

Flint’s teeth sinking into the tight knot right above Silver’s shoulder blade as he drove rhythmically into him. He was not being marked, he was being taken over. He surrendered. He had struck his own colors and run up the white flag. And he wept, because the pleasure that surged through his body was more intense than even any of the pain that he’d experienced.

He lay there afterwards, his head cradled in the crook of Flint’s arm, while Flint’s fingers traced gentle lines down his face, wandered idly into his mouth, pinched the lobes of his ears.

“What did you tell him?” Silver asked through his post-coital haze.

“Utley?” Flint’s voice was warm and content, making a strange yearning overtake Silver for more of the same. “I told him the truth,” he said. “I also told him you were a hard man not to like.”

Silver smiled, nodding his head forward until their noses touched and rubbed softly against each other. “He’s not angry?”

“We’ve spoken of you,” Flint replied over a small yawn. “He had long guessed how I felt about you. I think he was only genuinely surprised it had taken us this long to get here.”

“You’ve certainly wasted no time with _him_ ,” Silver could not help but slip in.

Flint’s eyes were closed, but his lips still rested in a content smile. With his hand over Flint’s heart, Silver could feel the pounding slowing down, his breath evening out as he slowly drifted into the arms of Hypnos.

“I have something to tell you,” Silver whispered. But Flint had already been beyond the hearing of it.

***

**Back on Skeleton Island**

The sound of gunshots echoing across the island had told the remaining men they’d gone the wrong way.

“I think they found Flint,” Hands mused, looking askance at Silver.

“Wager you’re right,” Silver nodded. “Time to reunite this party.”

Hands’ axe was in a man’s skull before he even had the chance to call for help, while Silver’s saber had sliced clean through his unsuspecting opponent’s neck. The third man was cut down as he attempted to flee. 

“Take their coats,” Silver exhaled, the blood dripping from his blade onto the misty ferns of Skeleton Island. The place was more moist than the goddamn ocean and it made the site of Silver’s amputation hurt something fierce. He could not wait to get the fuck off this island, never to return.

They trudged through the jungle towards their rendezvous point, slashing away at overgrown vines and scaring off lizards and spiders that were easily the size of Silver’s hand. He hated the Caribbean and had no idea why he’d ever come here in the first place. The man he once had been was dead, and he’d been replaced a wholly different creature, and that creature apparently really _hated_ spiders.

A flash of red ahead of them made them pull up. Silver cocked his pistol, pointing it at the approaching crimson forms among the foliage.

“Who goes there!”

“It’s me, John.”

Flint stepped out into a clearing, followed by Utley, both wearing the red coats they had taken off their victims.

“Are you hurt?” Silver asked with trepidation, lowering his weapon.

“Are ye gonna kiss it better?” Hands mumbled behind him.

“Easy now, Iz,” Silver smirked at his faithful dogsbody.

“We’re fine,” Flint replied.

“Where’s the cache?”

“In the ground.”

“Good.”

Silver reholsted his weapon before Flint’s arms were around him. “Everything is going according to plan,” Flint whispered into his ear.

“I know,” Silver exhaled, placing a small, furtive kiss on the side of Flint’s neck.

“Let’s go get our girls,” Flint said as the four men turned to begin the long walk back in the direction of the longboat.

***

**Maroon Island, a few weeks prior**

Silver was not ready for falling asleep and waking up in Flint’s arms. He did not deserve that privilege, even if it would have been happily granted him. Besides, he would not be able to sleep. Not with his body singing ten simultaneous madrigals like that. Not with his mind reliving each touch, each kiss, each incredible sensation that needed to be recalled and catalogued and filed away for future use in case such bliss was not to be repeated.

Flint loved him. Flint _loved_ him.

A part of Silver wanted to shake him awake only to hear those words again. Instead, he got dressed, picked up his crutch and quietly made his way out of Flint’s tent. The sound of cicadas greeted him, throwing his senses into a tailspin of confusion. Being with Flint seemed to have made everything else suddenly louder and brighter.

Silver took an uncertain step and almost ended up colliding with Utley, who had materialized seemingly out of thin air. The two men gave one another a tentative smile that made Silver feel sheepish and deeply embarrassed.

“He's asleep,” he muttered, nodding towards the tent that he’d just exited.

“That's all right,” Utley said with a nod. “I like watching him sleep.”

“Yeah. Me too.”

Silver smiled, less awkwardly this time. It was a small gesture, but Utley’s smile had been a peace offering in return. A sign of mutual understanding.

Their quiet truce was interrupted by the sudden intrusion of Hands, who appeared to fly past them while muttering, “Boy, when ye decide to fuck Flint, ye really _fuck_ Flint!”

“He's alright,” Silver said to Utley with a shrug. “Just a bit overprotective, like a mama bear.”

Utley laughed, and for the first time since setting eyes on him, Silver realized he had a really nice face. The kind of face a man could get used to looking at every morning.

 

***

**Back on the _Eurydice_**

“I see,” Rogers said, measuring Eleanor with a long look. “Back to behaving and talking like a pirate, are you? Well, it will all be over soon enough, my love.” He turned to leave her room. “I expect you to behave with the comportment befitting a lady of your station, once this is all over. We’ll put this all behind us. You will adjust.”

“How long has it been?” she called after him.

“How long?”

“Yes, since Silver went after Flint?”

Rogers took a quick look at his pocket watch. “He has less than an hour left until I kill the girl.”

The door closed behind him, leaving Eleanor alone. She took a breath to steady herself. Her throat was parched and her temples throbbed like two war drums. 

_Once enough time has passed,_ Flint said, _I estimate two hours, the men who would have followed us to the island will be dead, and we will be on our way back to assist you._

Eleanor lifted her long skirt, revealing the tall leather boots and a scabbard that had been belted around her thigh. She undid the binding and unsheathed her weapon from the scabbard, letting the blade shimmer in the candlelight before her eyes.

 _He will not expect a physical attack from you,_ Flint had said. _You should be able to use the element of surprise to dispatch your guards, if any._

Eleanor undid the lacing of her skirt entirely, letting it fall to the floor, exposing her breeches. “There, that’s better,” she whispered to herself before gently knocking on the door. “Hello? I’m terribly sorry, could I bother you for some water?” she called in her meekest voice.

The man who fell at her feet with a fountain of blood bursting from his neck had not been known to her. She had no time to contemplate such things. Ever since she stood in Miranda Barlow’s house with that Spaniard on the tip of her sword like some fucking roast, she found that she could no longer afford to care about such trivialities. She had taken that man’s sword with her before stepping out of her hold.

The next man whose throat was at her blade’s edge claimed to be nothing but a cook. “Where are they keeping her?” she hissed into his ear. “Take me there or die.”

 _Once you get to Madi,_ Flint had said, _you know what to do._

And she did. She fucking did.


	5. A State of Multiplying Questions

When Madi opened her eyes, she had to briefly contemplate she’d actually fallen asleep and was dreaming.

“We gotta go, come on, we gotta go!” Eleanor had been cutting her bound wrists with a sharp blade. Madi smiled like a fool, grabbing for the bun in the back of Eleanor’s head as she pulled her in for a kiss.

“My sweet prince,” she whispered into her mouth, “you’ve come to rescue me again.”

“Take this sword,” Eleanor said with a soft blush coloring her cheekbones. “We’re going to burn this fucking ship to the ground. Flint has a plan.”

Madi was on her feet in no time, following Eleanor down through the dark belly of the whale that had swallowed them. “I wanted to kill him,” she said as they crept towards the barrels of pitch in the back. “Your husband.”

“I know,” Eleanor whispered.

“Would that have made you angry?”

“You getting captured made me pretty fucking angry,” Eleanor replied. She held an oil lamp aloft over the stocks of the inferno in the making. “Flint had been right. He was never going to let them leave this place alive.”

“We were born to live and die free,” Madi said as she helped to spill the pitch over the boards.

“You’re fucking right, we were,” Eleanor agreed, tossing the lamp down to let the flames catch.

***

“There’s smoke on the _Eurydice_ ,” Utley said, handing the spyglass back to Flint.

“They fucking did it,” Silver exhaled. “Give the signal, Iz!”

Hands was facing in the direction of the _Walrus_ , making large circles with a torch he’d been holding in his hand.

“There’s no going back,” Flint turned towards Utley, speaking with an urgent but gentle voice. “I understand some of those men were your brothers once. You might still feel residual fealty towards them. But not today. There’s to be no quarter, Mr. Utley.”

“I understand,” Utley nodded. “You can count on me. I’m not Rogers’ man.”

“No,” Flint spoke closely, “you are _mine_.”

***

There were two more men who had made the mistake of underestimating them, and they now lay in puddles of their own blood as Eleanor and Madi made their furtive way to the gundeck.

“We must get down,” Eleanor nodded towards the gun port that held the attached ladder. “We’re running out of time.”

“Where are they?” Madi asked with trepidation. “You said they’d be here in time for us to escape.”

“They’ll come. Flint and Silver will never let anything happen to you, you must know that.” Eleanor took Madi’s hand in hers. “We may not get another chance… If anything happens, Madi, I need you to know that the last few weeks I spent with you…”

“I know,” Madi interrupted her. “I love you, too.”

“Well, this is touching,” said an intruding voice. “I hate to be so rude in mixed company,” Billy Bones stated as he raised his own sabre and took a few steps forward, “but you two bitches are not going anywhere.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Mr. Bones,” Eleanor said, bodily blocking Madi from Billy’s advance. “I know Mr. Gates had raised you better than this. You would not strike down a defenseless woman.”

“Ah, well,” Billy’s face contorted in something that almost resembled a smile, “would that that were true, but it’s not, is it? You’re a lot of things, Ms. Guthrie, but defenseless was never one of them.” He nodded towards her blade. “D’you know how to use that? Did daddy Flint teach you?”

“Fuck off, Bones.”

“He’s a good teacher, he is. Old Flint.” He took another step forward with a hideous sneer. “I learned a lot myself from fighting him. Learned some of his favorite tricks. But here’s the thing about Flint.” He paused for effect while smoke rose up behind him through the cracks in the floor. Eleanor felt the tug of Madi’s hand, pulling her towards the gun port, and she took a step back. “I fucking hate Flint. Hate Silver too. As far as I’m concerned, there’s no difference between them. Between any of you. You’re all my enemies now. And if killing the two of you lovely ladies will guarantee that no matter the outcome here today, that it ends with defeat for them, then I must do what I must.”

“You fool,” Madi hissed, stepping out from behind Eleanor. “You think killing us means defeat for them? You would’ve only given them martyrs to unite behind.”

“I’ll take my chances,” Billy shrugged and lunged forward.

“Madi, get out!” Eleanor cried, parrying his blade. This was not what Flint had prepared her for. She could wield the sword well enough to defend against an unsuspecting opponent, but not this. This towering lump of misplaced rage.

“I’m not leaving you!” Madi cried as she swung her sword at their attacker, allowing a moment of respite for Eleanor.

But before he could truly swing in her direction again, Eleanor was pulled out of the way, and a man in a red coat stepped forward into Billy’s path.

“Saving a dance for me?” Flint grinned with all his teeth. He looked behind him, motioning towards the gun port. “Go now, they’re waiting for you below.”

***

Utley, it turned out, was a magnificent shot. Or so Silver noted while the former redcoat (currently masquerading as a redcoat again) was shooting his former comrades in arms like fish in the barrel before his eyes. Silver had helped Eleanor and finally Madi into the long boat, wrapping his arms around her and allowing himself the privilege of inhaling the scent of her skin once more. “I thought we’d lost you,” he muttered.

“The day’s not over, John,” she whispered back.

Their coats had fooled Rogers’ men long enough to allow them access to their hull and now, as the smoke rose up around them and men began to jump, it had placed them in a perfect position for taking them out, one by one, as Utley did the shooting and Hands finished anyone who needed finishing off with his battleax.

“Where the fuck is Flint?” Silver asked no one in particular.

“Fighting Billy Bones,” Madi replied, looking up towards the gun port from which they had just descended.

A loud crash resounded over their heads and Hands grabbed on to the oars to maneuver them out of the way as the inside of the _Eurydice_ began to fall apart. Just as Silver was about to curse Flint to hell and back, he witnessed a literal fall from grace that would have put Lucifer himself to shame. It occurred to him that when Captain Flint wanted to throw you overboard, there would never be any question as to his true intentions. As Billy Bones’ body floated away, carried by the currents towards the open sea, Silver’s heart skipped a beat again.

“We should have gone with him,” he whispered.

“His instructions were clear,” Utley replied handing Silver an empty musket. “Reload that.”

The _Eurydice_ groaned and snapped, fire enveloping her hull like the rising tentacles of the kraken.

The shooting and shouting from the other direction had told them that the crew of the _Walrus_ had arrived to clean up the rest of the stragglers. Hands lifted his oars again, when Silver’s hand halted him.

“We can’t.”

“If she sinks, she’ll suck us down with her.”

“Not yet!”

“We’re going to bloody die cuz yer feeling sentimental!” Hands insisted.

Impact shook them, the boat leaned on its side, shifted by a hand that materialized over the gunwale. Hands was just about to chop it off with an expeditious blow of his ax when Silver threw himself across to grab on to that disembodied hand and shield it from harm.

By the time he’d heaved Flint into the boat, Silver swore his hair had turned several shades of gray. “Where’ve you _been_?” he demanded, simultaneously shaking and examining Flint for any fatal wounds.

“Busy,” Flint exhaled. “Where is he? Fucking Rogers?”

“ _Now_ can I get out the way of the bloody sinkhole?” Hands inquired, lifting the oars once more, but only to hit someone over the head on the other side of their boat.

“I’d say we might have bigger problems looming ahead,” Utley pointed out, stretching his arm towards a point in the distance, where through the smoke they could just make out an approaching sail. “Friend or foe?”

Behind them, the _Eurydice_ gave a final groan in her death throes, as the ship imploded in the arms of the mounting inferno, sails crumbling into the water like leaves off a dying tree. Flint took the spyglass from Utley’s hand again, catching his breath as he focused on the sloop that was coming undeterred in their direction.

“It’s the _Lion_ ,” Flint said, lowering the spyglass.

“The _Lion_?” Silver took the glass from Flint’s hand to have a look himself.

“The _Lion_ was one of the ships in my husband’s… in Rogers’ fleet,” Eleanor said, her eyes also fixed on the approaching sails.

“Not anymore,” Flint said. “It’s Rackham’s now.”

***

Rogers had crawled onto dry land like some salamander out of Hell. He was promptly knocked over the head by Dooley and kicked in the kidneys by Joji. Flint observed all this from a distance and only interfered when it looked as if his crew might _accidently_ beat this pompous ass to death.

It was just like Rackham though, to arrive with the cavalry in time to put the finishing touches on the capture, gloat in Rogers’ face, and then take the lion’s share of the credit for everything (as Flint had no doubt Jack would, somewhere down the line, when he was in his cups and reminiscing about standing on the shoulders of giants or what not).

When finally left alone with him and Silver, Jack told them some cockamamey story about sailing to Philadelphia and failing at convincing Eleanor’s grandfather to recapture Nassau. Flint was not sure what to make of that. He did, however, relish the look on Rackham’s face when he saw Eleanor Guthrie leap out of the longboat, in tall boots and brandishing a bloodied sabre. He wished someone had painted a picture of that scene, for posterity.

“So what now?” Jack asked. “I was told at the camp that you’d taken the cache with you.”

“It’s buried on the island,” Flint supplied. “We’ll retrieve it in the morning. You don’t need to stick around for that part.”

“Oh, I’ll very much be staying until that cache is secure, thank you,” Jack said with an extravagant eye roll. “And once the cache is secure, something tells me you have no plans to return it to its rightful owner, i.e. yours truly?”

“We’ll take the cache back to the camp,” Flint replied with growing irritation. “Imagine: returning to the camp, with Madi, the cache, and the governor defeated and in chains. News of it will travel far and wide. The war will be fully, undeniably, and maybe unstoppably underway. This victory here, today, changes everything for everyone. Forever.” Silver’s face twitched at his words but he remained mute. “You too will have your share in that glory,” Flint added for Rackham’s benefit.

“He’s right, and you know it,” was all that Silver uttered, his face looking suddenly gaunt and pale.

“And now, if you don’t mind,” Flint said, addressing Rackham again, “we’d like to have the room.”

Jack shook his head, “You people,” as he turned to leave the cabin, abandoning Flint and Silver in the strange silence that descended over them in his wake.

“Why the long face?” Flint asked as he took a few steps towards Silver’s seat. “We have Madi back. She’s safe. Rogers is stashed away in Rackham’s hold. And I can’t wait to go down on my knees and suck your cock until you forget your own name. What am I missing that is making you look like this?” As he spoke, Flint did indeed kneel by Silver’s side, one hand landing over his good knee.

Silver let out a soft sigh, his body to beginning to melt into Flint’s touch. “I have a bad feeling,” he said. “About all of this.”

“We must watch him,” Flint agreed, kneading the flesh beneath his fingers. “That one would just as soon stab us in the back over that cache.”

“Yes.”

“You are strangely laconic and that worries me,” Flint whispered, leaning closer until his mouth nuzzled against Silver’s earlobe. “Whatever it is that’s got its hooks into you, you know you can tell me. You can tell me anything.”

“You almost died today,” Silver whispered. “We all came quite close to dying today.”

“We’ve come close before,” Flint replied. His hand moved gently to wrap around Silver’s as his lips pressed a chaste kiss to the corner of his mouth. “We’re still here.”

“For now.”

“Life is always just for now. But here, now, we can make a change, the kind that would rock the New World and echo all the way back to fucking England. We’re so close, John, I can almost taste it. This war is alive, it is breathing, it has a heartbeat. You can taste it too, can’t you?”

Silver took a deliberate swallow, drawing Flint’s eyes to the bobbing of his sharp Adam’s apple. He would press his lips right there. Later. Not yet. _Soon_.

“I can,” Silver admitted forcing a smile. His hand brushed over the bristles on Flint’s head, thumb caressing the scuffs and bruises that were more visible now that their enemies’ blood had been partially washed off.

“We are unstoppable when we are together,” Flint said, kissing the knuckles of Silver’s hand.

“Gods of War,” Silver replied with a faraway look in his eyes.

“We have the night,” Flint whispered. “Whatever’s haunting you now, things will be better in the morning.” He placed another soft kiss on Silver’s lips and rose. “We should return to the _Walrus_.”

“In a bit,” Silver said, leaning on his crutch to rise. “I’d like to have another go at Rackham. Alone, if you don’t mind.”

Flint paused. He did not know what to do with his hands again, so he twirled one of his rings and avoided Silver’s eyes.

“Trust me,” Silver added.

“I do.”

***

Back on the island Silver wished he’d never set foot upon again, they walked in a single file line past ferns and trees that dripped over their shoes and onto their hair with morning dew and exotic fruit sap. There was Flint, ahead of the rest, his broad back maneuvering through the jungle like its feral king, with Silver lumbering on behind, now and then hitting something wiggly and slippery with his crutch. From afar, Silver heard a soft whistle coming from on high like a morning lark; that had been Utley, who insisted on coming even though Flint knew well enough where the treasure was hidden. Bringing up the end of the procession, came Hands, Morgan, and Gunn, carrying the shovels. Rackham had insisted on a contingency plan.

Silver already had one.

The buzzing in his ear may have been the insects or the terrified rush of his own blood. His throat was parched from a night spent in celebrations of the crushing victory over the Governor, who now sat locked up in the _Lion_ ’s hold, awaiting a fate that only Jack Rackham’s mind was spiteful enough to concoct. His vision, too, blurred, like the hours of night blurred into the first rays of dawn, when Silver ground his teeth together and allowed his fingers to caress the soft curve of Flint’s lips. “Wake up, Captain.”

He’d spent what was left of the night memorizing that face, and those very lips, and those hands where they lay in repose after a long day of slaughter. He might need those memories later, the more solid the better, because no man had the power to reach into his past and hold the thing he had been forced to give up. He’d spent the greater part of the past year studying this force of nature at rest: a sleeping Flint. With all the festivities at hand, they had not been availed the opportunity to do much else other than slumber the sleep of the victorious. So Flint slept, and inside him the war took shape, grew strong, raged like a wildfire, until it absorbed his organs and ran through his bones like marrow, and wore his skeleton for a battle armor.

“Wake up, Captain.”

Silver could not let it out of Flint and into the world: that war. It would devour everything on its way out, starting with _them_. So he would cut off his other limb to save his life.

“We’ll rest here,” Flint said.

They stood in a small clearing with Utley, Hands and the rest hanging back, as if mindful of giving them privacy.

“We won’t be going any further. Not until I know for certain that I’m wrong about what I suspect is happening here.”

Flint was speaking from a fallen tree trunk that he’d turned into a makeshift chair. Alone in that jungle, exhausted and defeated, he resembled a king like never before. A king whose crown had been far too heavy a burden to bear alone.

“Rackham made a deal with Marion Guthrie in Philadelphia,” Silver spoke carefully as he faced Flint. He kept an eye on Utley, who stood to the side with his arms crossed and an expression of unnatural calm upon his handsome face. “She has agreed to help him secure a legal hold over Nassau and see Rogers deposed and in disgrace, but for that, he must prove to her that the biggest obstacle to securing that peace has been removed.”

“He’s come here to kill me,” Flint snarled. “And you? What deal did you make with Rackham? And in exchange for what?”

Silver’s throat constricted and his voice came out strangled and small. “I cannot watch you die,” he said.

Flint’s smile cut across his face like a scythe. “Then look away, John. That’s why you brought reinforcements, to do your bidding.”

“He brought me, as well,” Utley spoke up.

Flint’s head swiveled about, his body propelled from the log. “ _Et tu_ , Sebastian?”

“We’ve spoken,” Utley replied with nod towards Silver. “We agree that in all of this, the treasure that is most precious to us both is not the one in the ground on this island.”

A smile of derision spread across Flint’s face, a harbinger of an outburst of mocking laughter. “I knew you would not listen to me,” Silver said, preempting that outburst. “We’ve talked about it before, this nebulous future you envisioned for us all. And yet, you’ve always excluded yourself from it. Wanting to mold both me and Madi into some ideal of your own making, like Pygmalion did with his Galatea. I brought Utley in because I was hoping that you’d listen if it was coming from us both.”

“Why should I listen to anything?” Flint hissed. “You’re both betraying me.”

“We love you,” Utley said softly. “You may not see it now, but we are doing this for you.”

“How? Disarming me at the moment victory is in my grasp? The dream that I’ve strived towards for years, snatched from me because… what? You do not have it in you to keep fighting? Because you cannot stand the thought of losing?” Flint’s breath became increasingly ragged as he spoke. “All this will be for nothing. _We_ will have been for nothing!”

Flint’s body was coiled tight, poised like a panther ready to strike and Silver flinched. His hand traveled to the pistol at his side, fingers curling around the wooden grip. The beating of his heart reverberated in every part of his body, a deafening waterfall that threatened to wash him away.

“I don’t care,” he lied.

“And what of Madi?” Flint went on pitilessly. “How will you explain all this to her? She needs this war even more than I do.”

“I’ve already lost Madi,” Silver replied. “But I can still save you.”

“You stupid boy, if you want to stop me, you’ll have to shoot me yourself and deliver my body to Rackham. Or perhaps one of your other henchmen can give it a try, but you know they would fail.” Flint cast a scathing look at Utley and then directed his eyes to the heavens, a strip of blue that was barely visible above the canopy of dripping green. “God!” he exclaimed as if his heart tore open. “There was only one man in the world who could have stopped me, and fucking destiny put him in my path.”

“There is another,” Silver said in a voice that was barely more than a hoarse whisper. “There’s something I’ve been trying to tell you. For weeks now, but somehow the time was never right. And then, I suppose I got greedy. Selfish. Jealous.”

“Fucking hell, not this again,” Flint groaned looking between the two men. “I thought we’d closed that ridiculous loop.”

“Thomas Hamilton is alive,” Silver finally said. His hand was extended towards Flint, not the one that held the gun, but the one holding out the piece of paper that had burned a brand into his eyelids as well as his heart. Holding out another white flag. “He’s on a plantation in Georgia. It’s a prison camp of sorts, for men from well-off families whose nearest and dearest wanted them spirited away but cared for, out of the way of society’s prying eyes.”

“You’re lying,” Flint said, his own hand shaking as he took the missive out of Silver’s grasp.

“We can go there right now,” Silver continued. “You’re both still wearing the red coats we took off Rogers’ men. You easily pass for naval officers. You and Utley alone could walk in there and walk out with Thomas without anyone stopping you. And if someone does stop you, you’re more than capable of laying that entire place to ruin.”

“It isn’t true,” Flint repeated as his eyes stared vapidly at the page.

“We’ll take the _Walrus_ , we’ll go together. We’ll see him free and, when you are reunited again, we will take you anywhere you want to go. Anywhere but back here. Your war will end. Captain Flint will be dead. But _you_ will live. You can hate me if you want, but you will be alive. You will be happy. Won’t you?”

Flint collapsed to his knees, the paper slipped from his hands and landed on the damp moss.

“No,” he said.

“No?” Silver asked and cast Utley a worried look. The look he received in return was a warning, but it had been needless. Silver would have died before letting anyone hurt Flint, including himself.

“No,” Flint repeated. “I will not go without you.”

“Speak plainly, Captain,” Silver insisted, dropping to his knees at Flint’s side. “My heart has always been in your hand. Tell me what you need.”

“I _need_ you.” Flint smiled at him and his eyes were even more green for the film of tears that had formed over them. “Perhaps I am the one who is selfish and greedy, but by god, I need you, John. I need both of you,” he said turning towards Utley. “Even though you are both treacherous curs who plotted against me behind my back.”

“I could not let you go when you were Eleanor Guthrie’s prisoner,” Utley said, coming over and lowering himself to the moss as well. “What makes you think I would let you go now?”

“We will go to Georgia, and Captain Flint will die,” Flint nodded, looking at his empty hands. “But only if you’re both coming with me. For good, not just for now.”

“Won’t your Thomas have something to say about that?” Silver asked, looking up at Flint from beneath the cover of his long eyelashes.

Flint laughed. “You don’t know the first thing about Lord Thomas Hamilton.”

A breath Silver had seemingly been holding for weeks had finally ripped from his rib cage and he allowed himself to fall into Flint’s embrace. “I did not dare hope that you’d still want me with you,” he confessed before Flint’s mouth found his and stole what was left of his breath away. Flint’s kiss tasted bittersweet on Silver’s tongue, spiced with a hidden flavor of blood and tears, but he would have time still to turn that remaining vinegar to honey. He was being offered that chance.

Utley’s voice brought Silver from the half-dazed state into which he’d descended, “In truth, a good quartermaster is a hard thing to find.”

Silver laughed into the kiss and pulled Utley in by the lapels, so he could kiss him too. He could not imagine the likely outcome of his interactions with Thomas Hamilton, but he was grateful to have a ready diversion at hand for those times when Flint might become otherwise occupied. It was a step towards learning how to share, which was a thing Silver had never had to apprehend before. Because in order to share you first had to be in possession of something. It had to be yours.

And so it was.

***

The boy who had been talking Jack’s ear off for the better part of the afternoon had something of the fey about him. Out of her left ear, Eleanor could hear the pleasant cooing of Mr. and Mrs. Governor Featherstone, chatting it up with some foreign luminaries in the adjacent salon. Her right ear was fixed on Rackham’s table while she waited for Max to come out of her office onto the terrace.

“Long John Silver’s story is a hard one to know,” Jack had been saying. Eleanor bit her lip and shook her head. This was the fourth time in as many months that she’d caught Jack eulogizing the man he’d barely known. In retrospect, so few of them truly did. She was just catching the end of the speech, “Until all that remains of any of it are stories bearing only a passing resemblance to the world the rest of us lived in,” when Max’s hand upon her forearm startled her.

“Are you heading back today, chérie?”

“Madi wants to be home for the last stage of her confinement,” Eleanor smiled, placing her hand over Max’s. “Thank you for everything you’re continuing to do for us, Max.”

Below them, Jack was proclaiming with great flourish that, “There is, by law and strict enforcement of the administration, no piracy in Nassau!” and Max and Eleanor exchanged a knowing look.

“He must be getting bored,” Eleanor mused. “Since he’s written those affidavits that condemned my former husband to debtor’s prison, he must be practically fuming at the mouth to concoct some new, quality stories. Perhaps he should write a book?”

“Jack is Jack,” Max smiled. “He will never be satisfied with what he has so long as there are greater legends out there eclipsing his own.”

“You and Anne must have your hands full,” Eleanor laughed.

“We manage.” Max leaned closer, “Speaking of greater legends... All these fools are still trying to join Jack’s crew and all for a shot at Captain Flint’s famed, elusive treasure.”

“Fools indeed. To assume that treasure would still be there for the taking.”

“And what of the men who already took it?”

“We had word from James about a month ago,” Eleanor replied in a whisper. “They are still safe and well on the new continent. They’ve gone north.”

“But they will surely wish to return once Madi is delivered of… your child?”

Eleanor’s eyes crinkled from her smile. “Don’t worry, Max, if any of them ever darken our doorstep, Madi and I will be sure to keep them away from Nassau and out of your beautiful hair.”

“All four of them?”

“I promise.”

They kissed each other on the cheek three times before Eleanor picked up the leather satchel at her feet and threw it over her shoulder. “Be good!” Max shouted after her.

“Never!” Eleanor winked back and headed down the stairs.

She had caught up with Jack on the way down to the beach. He had strolled at the leisurely pace of a man no longer accustomed to rushing of any kind, while Eleanor sped down towards the longboat awaiting her as if the hounds of hell were snapping at her heels. Each trip to Nassau she had taken since the establishment of the new regime had been a reminder that the cord that held her in its thrall since her birth had been severed.

“Captain Rackham,” Eleanor saluted Jack in passing.

“Ah, Captain Guthrie!” Jack doffed his hat at her. “I trust you and the Missus are doing well? Any good hunting?”

“Can’t complain,” Eleanor replied. “Lucky to still have a crew, some might say.”

Luck, of course, had nothing to do with it. They were amply paid, and not from their latest forays into what was left of sanctioned piracy.

“Yes, well,” Jack mused with a twist of his mustache, “it has become exceedingly hard to find good men these days. Or women, ahem.”

Eleanor suppressed a chuckle. “I’m sure as a man of your repute and caliber you are always having to turn down new recruits,” she said, lifting an eyebrow at the sight of the boy from the bar who trailed fifty paces behind Rackham like an eager shadow. “Give Anne my best.”

“And you, please give my best to the Devil!”

“I’ll let him know if I see him!” Eleanor waved as she leapt into the longboat.

The familiar hull of the _Walrus_ loomed over her head as she scaled the ladder with what had become practiced ease. Dooley, Gunn, and Joji brought up the rear, lifting aboard the supplies that Max had secured for them, while she bounded happily across the main deck and into the captain’s cabin.

Madi rose from the desk, where she’d been seated bent over a new book sent to her by the men they were no longer allowed to name in public _. We must never cease being mad_ , the inscription had said. It was signed _James_. She hoped where ever he was that James was as happy as she was. They might have lost their war, but she had gained something she wasn’t sure she’d ever have again: a life with someone she loved, who loved her back.

Madi wrapped her arms around Eleanor’s neck, her lips brushing her cheek. “You return quickly this time.”

“I was eager not to leave you alone for long,” Eleanor replied with naked honesty as her hands gently landed on the swell of Madi’s belly. “This will be our last supply run until the baby arrives. I was insane to let you come with me in your condition.”

“ _Let_ me? Only a fool of a captain would set sail without their quartermaster.”

They kissed over soft laughter, hands cupping each other’s faces as if each one had been a gift the other never hoped to deserve. Their closeness was interrupted by a soft knock on the cabin.

“Everything’s fixed and ready, Captain,” Eleanor recognized Israel Hands’ rough voice.

Eleanor and Madi both walked out on deck. The cooling breeze wafted in like a welcome friend over Eleanor’s tanned and salted skin. She pressed Madi’s hand with hers, taking a last look towards the port of Nassau.

“Mr. DeGroot, get us underway,” she commanded, her eyes fixed firmly on the horizon.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'd like to take this moment to proclaim that the ship name for Silver/Thomas/Flint/Utley is obviously STFU which is why it was so important that they all eventually come together.
> 
> If you enjoyed your time here, please tip the bar tender on your way out <3

**Author's Note:**

> Buy me a drink and tell me I'm pretty ;)


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